


Odds and Ends

by tiniestdormouse



Category: Pandora Hearts
Genre: Angst, Dysfunctional Family, F/F, F/M, Family Feels, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Incest, Kink, M/M, Multi, Other, Sibling Incest, Sibling Love, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-10 14:42:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 249
Words: 54,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5590144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiniestdormouse/pseuds/tiniestdormouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles and ficlets originally requested on tumblr. Most are romantic pairings or smut.</p><p>There's a lot, so this archive will be updated slowly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Drabble request: Vincent/Oz/Gil. Vincent targets Oz and Gil gets involved. Any time period, go crazy.

***

This was the first Saturnalia for the pair of captured brothers from Albion; Gilbert, unused to the customs of this foreign land, hesitated at the edge of the luxurious bed and blushed profusely as he watched as Vincent snapped the slave collar around their master’s neck and angled the young boy’s head between his knees. “Aren’t you in a celebrating mood?” Vincent murmured, eyes half-lidded, as Oz’s head began to bob up and down in time with Vincent’s thrusts. Their master remained on all fours, his arse lubed and ready for Gilbert when the older brother finally decided to take advantage, thinking, “When in Rome…”    


	2. Chapter 2

_Drabble request: Vincent and Vanessa. Anything. Doesn’t have to be sexy or such. Just go go go._

***

Vanessa was never a threat to him and Gil, unlike their older adopted brothers, although Vincent knew that out of all of the Nightray children, she hated them the most: the one who always egged Ernest on when it came to bullying him and Gilbert, the one who snarled or glared at them in passing through the manor, the one who once accused Vincent at fifteen of sneaking into her rooms while she dressed in a plot to get them thrown out for scandal. Of course, even under the possibility of endangering his daughter’s virtue, the Duke didn’t bat an eye and halted her older brothers’ rage with a single, scornful look; Vincent knew that was the moment Vanessa realized her utter powerlessness within the Nightray household. Perhaps that was why during a cold winter afternoon years later, when Vincent __did__ show up in her rooms, Vanessa acted disdainful and yet compliant; some part of Vincent felt sorry for her later on, but it was only a very, very small part.

 


	3. Chapter 3

__Drabble request:Vincent/Gilbert. Choking or some kind of breath play bordering violence— OR hair brushing. Innocent or violence, your choice. Or hell, maybe even both._ _

***

His older brother had an inborn grace that Vincent envied, even now as Gilbert thrashed beneath him face-down on the bed as Vincent mounted him from behind, with Gil in his ballroom finery from the waist up: gloves, vest, frockcoat and all. Urgently, Gil banged his fist against the headboard – once, twice (that was their sign for __enough, enough, enough__ ) – but Vincent held on to the cravat for __just__ a moment longer because he knew his brother and he knew how Gilbert needed that final, vicious __pull__ in order to send him over the edge. Afterward, while they hurriedly re-donned their missing clothes, Vince tenderly traced the red welt along the front of Gilbert’s neck before hiding their devious act behind that high-necked shirt collar and that same silken cravat, now only slightly rumpled; a gentle run through Gil’s disheveled locks with an ivory-handled hairbrush was the only other thing they needed before slipping out of Vincent’s rooms to meet the waiting carriage downstairs.


	4. Chapter 4

Drabble / Song request: _Oz/Gil (lol I’m creative) both song andandand you should write them in an angsty/fluffy setting. :DD /flails_

Their song:  **Within Temptation - “Say My Name”**

This is can be Gil/Oz before Raven reveals himself as Gil to Oz, or Oz/Gil for the morning after Jack appears in Pandora and Oz reaches for sleeping Gil.

***

Death pervaded upon all the hours of their days, starting with the funerals for the Duchess Nightray, Lady Vanessa, and Master Elliot (not “young master” anyone, though he’ll never grow to be old); these occasions were brimming with formality and falseness and head-bowing and “our most deepest condolences” and “your house is in our thoughts and prayers” and “our deepest regrets” and a special appearance by a member of the secluded royal family even: a feeble man who gave the Nightray widower and his adopted son a shaking touch (oh, if only these were the days of old, when royal touches were thought to heal the grieving and the sick).

Oz watched from the crowd standing by Uncle Oscar and Ada (they, being of the Vessalius house, were not openly welcomed, but it was social courtesy for them to make an appearance nonetheless); he couldn’t take his eyes off of Gilbert, who suddenly looked so much older – even older than before – wearing those strange golden lapels and sapphire-encrusted dagger pendant that signified his place as the Nightray’s Heir Apparent.

That evening, stopping by his apartment, he found Gilbert slumped at the kitchen table cradling the pendant in his hands; he didn’t say a word, but sat beside him and wrapped both arms around the older man as they both stared at that opulent brooch, its significance weighing down their silence with all of its implications. 


	5. Chapter 5

Drabble request: Elliot Leo. Ones a king and ones a knight, you choose which :D

***

For the young man known as King Elliot I (or known better as the Boy King from the more snake-tongued members of the court), he certainly could use some more instruction on the important matters of life: like the proper way to send off foreign ambassadors, no matter what personal feelings one may have toward said ambassadors. Sir Leo could not help but cringe as His Royal Highness had Ambassador Yura dragged out of the Throne room for his rumored behavior toward the lower-ranking (and much younger) members of the peerage; “You have to be more discreet about these things,” he berated the King as they lay together in bed that night. “What do you mean-?” His Royal Highness fumed, turning over on his side away from the young knight, “To think of that scum using power to press himself upon others is sickening…”; Sir Leo bit his tongue with a sigh, knowing that those same comments about that disgusting man had also been applied to their relationship more than once. 


	6. Chapter 6

Drabble request: Elliot and Vanessa in a flower shop.  
  


***

lliot lingered outside of the shop, unsure over whether to wait for his sister or to go in by himself (not that he wasn’t afraid of going in alone or anything; it’s just that flowers in general weren’t _his thing_ ), when finally Vanessa’s coach appeared from around the corner. Usually, he would’ve snapped at her for being late, but this time, like every year, he forgave her, knowing how discomforting this was for Vanessa as well (not because flowers weren’t her thing either – and they were most definitely _not_ –  but because of what they were for.) Twenty minutes later, both of them returned to the carriage with a dignified arrangement of pale lilies and white chrysanthemums in a heavy-based vase to take to the cemetery, where Mother waited ever so patiently beside the graves of her brother and her three oldest sons; each had died the same day but on different years, and Elliot always felt a coldness creep over his chest when he thought about that odd coincidence.


	7. Chapter 7

Drabble request: YURA AND VINCENT. Gyahahahaha.

***

Vincent considered few people’s interests truly perverse – he had high personal standards after all – and considering the various sexual fetishes and obsessions he had been exposed to throughout his life, watching Yura fawning over the Vessalius brat at his second coming-of-age ceremony was almost blasé. But it was only when seeing Gilbert’s silent fuming every time the foreigner came up to Oz’s side with a new question – and then, when Oz used the excuse of greeting his fellow nobles to avoid Yura, and so the annoying git sashayed over to his brother to start pestering _him_ about Oz’s daily hygiene habits – did Vincent finally decide to take action the most effective way he knew how. As the orchestra started playing the first song of the night, he tapped Yura on the shoulder (ignoring the expression of dawning horror on Gilbert’s face, one prompted for many reasons Vincent was sure) and he asked pleasantly, “Might I have the honor of enjoying the first dance of the evening with our esteemed traveler?”   


	8. Chapter 8

Drabble request: Ozbert with Gilbert bottoming? :3

***

Gilbert knew that size difference between him and Oz (in every sense of the word) had always been a complication when it came down to antics in the bedroom; for a long time, they had experimented with different positions that didn’t end with Gil smothering his young master but offered more variety than Oz simply mounting him (though it was undeniable how erotic it was to see Oz rolling his hips above him, head thrown back, mouth agape, hands gripping the sides of Gil’s hips as they moved in sync). So he should feel comfortable with this novel suggestion (and he felt *more* than merely comfortable, supine upon the kitchen table with his legs thrown over Oz’s shoulders as the teenage boy stood at the end and slooooowly pushed himself inside Gil’s prepared arse). But fucking on a hard table still felt like fucking on a hard table no matter how many blankets were thrown on top of it, and some laughing voice in his head kept reminding Gilbert of that one time Break unexpectedly emerged from the pantry closet to give an assignment; Gilbert had begged Oz to be sure all of the cabinets were locked shut before he started and yet – oh gods, right there, right there, right _there_ – Gil swore he saw the bottom cupboard door creak open…   


	9. Chapter 9

Drabble request: Ozbert, rope (because why not)

***

Oz wasn’t sure if Gil had completely forgiven him for earlier that day when Break had walked in on them copulating in kitchen (well, not exactly _walked in_ on them – that damn pervert never did that – and as a result, Oz vowed to install locks on all of the cabinets and closets throughout Gil’s entire apartment ASAP), but nevertheless, Oz offered to make it up to Gil in any way possible that night; Gilbert acted too embarrassed to reply, simply rolling onto his side of the bed and immediately going to sleep (or at least feinting slumber so Oz wouldn’t mention it again). When the morning came, however, Oz awoke to find himself spread-eagle on the mattress, limbs tied to the four corners of Gil’s poster bed; out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gil pushing bookcases in front of the wardrobe and the bathroom door.

“But what about under the bed?” he asked as Gilbert disrobed; with a devious glint in his eye, Gil kicked the bundle of clothing aside as it hit the floor in that direction in question and Oz heard a loud _snap_ in response: “Mousetraps.”


	10. Chapter 10

Drabble request: IN THE OLD MANSION I don't know why, Oz/Gil. 

***

They were dispelling ghosts, moving as one as their shadows stretched across the dusty, faded carpeting and as the sunlight dipped lower and lower through the floor-to-ceiling windows; Gilbert gripped the ground beneath him and willed himself to focus on Oz, only on Oz and their mingled breath and that beautiful sensation of Oz’s lips and tongue and hands all over Gil’s body. This was Oz, here and now, close enough to savor and to keep; this moment overturned that dreadful night where Gil bled out as he witnessed his dear master scream and clutch helplessly at the air when the Gryphon dragged him down into the Abyss. Together, they will exorcise this haunted place; their moans will banish those nightmare screams that once echoed here; their bodies will build something brighter and more precious inside this old mansion: tender new memories to be resurrected over the ruins of the old.   


	11. Chapter 11

_Drabble prompt: Andandand if you want another one, Vincent/Gil, something with the scissors Vince always uses. :)_

***

 _ _What refinement, what elegance, what__ – snip snip snip – __an art this was__ , Vincent thought as he took up the hem of Gilbert’s shirt and began to cut his way upwards, along the center of Gilbert’s chest; his brother twitched in sudden starts and made the cutest gasping noise every time the cold metal of the twin blades hit against his skin.

Vincent angled his scissors just a hair downwards so that the tips nicked the edge of Gil’s scar as he cut past it; Gilbert went rigid in surprise, shock, and pain, as Vincent completed his action, set his scissors aside on the bedstand, and slowly opened up Gil’s tattered shirt like a gift.

“W-what’d you do that for?” his brother hissed as Vincent watched a bead of blood well up from the tiny cut. Leaning down, Vincent dragged his tongue along the Gil’s scar, tasting that heated copper liquid and smearing Gil’s blood across his chest before replying serenely: “Reminding you how deep feeling can go, brother, since pleasure can be so shallow without a little danger.” 


	12. Chapter 12

Drabble request: Oz X Gilbert with Oz bondage  
***

The taste of cotton was making Oz’s tongue go dry, and he knew he must’ve looked absolutely _uncool_ slobbering so much as he tried to talk around the gag; “Mmmmpf!” was the best sound he could make (and that may have been just as well, for Oz couldn’t really form cohesive sentences when Gilbert kissed the tip of his cock – like that, just like _that_ – as he knelt before Oz’s seated, but bound, self).

There seemed to be some unfair justice in the world that Gilbert could tie his master to a simple chair and bring him so close to the edge for what seemed like an _eternity_ , while also repeatedly denying his release; between bouts of mindless sensation, Oz began constructing elaborate plans of revenge for when Gil finally untied him.

“ _If Gil thinks this is bondage, I’ll show him what bondage can do,”_ Oz thought gleefully in his elevated –  almost delusional – state of arousal and frustration, _“Ropes are for_ (oh geez, please let me come this time, please, please Gil, dammit) _amateurs…I’ll get chains, manacles, one of those weird cross-thingys I once saw in Uncle Oscar’s dirty lithography collection…_ (oh yes, yes, yesyesyesYES-)”  


	13. Chapter 13

Drabble request: Oz/Gil, ribbons  
***

Gil hated wearing ribbons in his hair; they never tied tight enough to hold his hair back unless it was knotted especially well, and when he had to wear one for some formal occasion or another, he had to keep on checking himself throughout the evening to make sure it stayed in its proper place.

Oz actually appreciated how suave Gil looked with his hair pulled back (and how easily accessible it made the back of Gil’s neck, one of the points of his body that made him lose _absolute control_ when stroked just right); and thus Oz was determined that Gil discover at least one other use for a good, soft length of silk ribbon so he’d be more willing to keep some around his apartment.

Now, while this ribbon certainly wasn’t in Gil’s hair (and, on second thought, Oz didn’t think Gil would ever want this particular ribbon _anywhere_ near his head after its present use had ended), Oz still appreciated how sophisticated it looked tied around Gil’s shaft, even as Gil begged to _please_ untie him there, that he couldn’t take this denial any longer, that he swore he’d do anything, _anything_ after as long as his master would let him orgasm right this _fucking_ second; as a hot spurt hit Oz’s hands when he undid the ribbon, Oz gave a wicked grin (he couldn’t help it), held up the limp ribbon, and said: “Well, tonight at the ambassador’s ball…”


	14. Chapter 14

Drabble request: AliceXSharon??  
***

Alice believed that Sharon was quite an expert on all things that Proper Young Ladies Should Know and whenever a question about relations between the sexes came up, Alice found herself often wandering to Sharon’s suite in Pandora (she didn’t want to make it obvious that she was curious and so always had an excuse, like wondering where her stupid manservant wandered off to, or was chasing after Break, who had, once again, popped out someplace at some inopportune time, but had run away before Alice could pummel him properly). And over several intensive teas together, after Alice had exhausted every single question she could think of about what Young Gentlemen and Young Ladies Should Be Doing, she finally asked the real question that had been bothering her for _ages_ and _ages_ : “Sharon,” she started off, rising from her seat and rounding the table to face the young Rainsworth heir, her voice suddenly becoming much more hesitant and gentler than usual, “if I don’t want to do anything with men at all, but with a woman, can I and still be considered a proper young lady?”

“Well,” Sharon replied, folding her fan and neatly placing it alongside her teacup, “physically, you can, yes, and I think-“ but Alice didn’t wait for the end of Sharon’s expert thought; instead, she grabbed Sharon to kiss her and to hold her close and to do all those things Improper Gentleman Did; Sharon didn’t mind this at all and turned out to be quite an expert on Those Sorts of Things too.


	15. Chapter 15

Drabble request: Vincent/Ada. Corsets.  
  
***

Vincent was all too familiar with the restrictions placed on the female figure: the layers of underclothing, that cage-like crinoline which usually held up a frivolous, overwrought dress, that awkward, bouncing bustle contraption that hindered from behind and the restrictive corset that kept the breasts propped high and the hips locked into whatever shape that was fashionable that season.

Vincent realized how these clothes warped women in the most horrendous ways, especially after he would disrobe the layers of many an upper-class matron only to reveal unsightly bulges of fat, bruised torsos, and red lines along the body where steel had imprinted into the flesh. It made his necessary seductions with members of the female sex all the more unpleasant.

The quality that stood out most when Vincent first saw Ada completely undone, however, was how pristine and unblemished her skin and how succulent her form was outside of those female contraptions: Ada’s body didn’t lie like other women’s. And so, Vincent didn’t mind when Ada would ask him to pull her corset laces tighter during their trysts. He did pull, tight enough to leave her gasping and pleading, “Yes, Vince, tighter,” tight enough to see those lovely tits heave and that waistline shrink, tight enough so he knew that when Ada would unlace herself before going to bed that night, she’ll _see_ those forming bruises and cutting welts and _feel_ her creaking bones and  _know_ it was Vincent who did that to her, him and only him.      


	16. Chapter 16

Drabble request: Vincent/Gil with Vincent dirty talking about Oz.  
  
***  
  
“And you know what I’ll do next, lovely brother?” Vincent jerked Gilbert’s head up to expose that pale column of neck as he rubbed his dripping cock against the crack of Gilbert’s lovely and waiting arse.

Gilbert, down on all fours on the hardwood floor, gave Vincent a rueful glare and said nothing despite the growing mix of rage and lust forming in those liquid gold eyes, and so Vincent continued, tightening his grip on his brother’s midnight locks: “I’ll tie him down to the bed and blindfold him with his own sweaty drawers, with his legs spread wide and waiting for me to take him as hard and as often as I want.”

Vincent gnawed right below Gilbert’s Adam’s apple as his brother gave a frustrated grunt in response, but those tender lips remained sealed shut. Vincent knew he was getting close though, and when he ended the fantasy with the words, “And you’ll be tied to that chair over here, watching as I fuck your precious master, and you’ll hear him scream and beg for you to save him, please save him from me, but you wouldn’t be able to do a damned thing; all you’ll be able to do is watch as I take him again and again and again-“

(Gilbert’s panting reply – “I’ll kill you, Vince, I swear, I’ll throw you off and fucking _kill you_ ,”), Vincent felt pure elation as he plunged his cock into Gilbert and turned those raging threats into lingering sobs of ecstasy.


	17. Chapter 17

Drabble request: Leo/Elliot, something involving ribbons

***

Leo had a dreadful habit of bringing freshly-purchased illicit reading materials with him back to Lutwidge after every trip to town (well, it wasn’t a dreadful habit for Leo of course, who enjoyed his naughty books, but it was mildly off-putting for Elliot, because he thought that if Leo turned to these cheap dime novels as a supplement to his sexual satisfaction, then Elliot wasn’t doing a good enough job).

One day, Elliot stomped off without uttering a single word upon seeing Leo return from the school-run carriage into town, and it was then that Leo knew that although Elliot was being anxious over nothing, it was high time Leo did _something_ to reassure his lover about how truly satisfied he made him.

After dinnertime, when all students had the opportunity to return to their rooms for study, Leo slipped his arm into the crook of Elliot’s elbow and whispered, “Hey, I got something special for you today,” before escorting Elliot back to their rooms and unrolling a length of wide, red ribbon. Elliot grumbled that it looked too _girly_ and why the hell did he spend any money on _that_ , before Leo innocently started to tie one end of the ribbon around Elliot’s wrists, explaining that he got this idea from a delicious novella he picked up last week, and he hoped Elliot wouldn’t mind experimenting a bit…


	18. Chapter 18

Drabble request: Vincent x Gilbert. Kink: Submissive Vincent? (Sorry it's not all that interesting! ><) 

(What are you talking about?? Sub!Vincent is ALWAYS interesting! :D especially since in my head canon, Vince would be a sub for Gil and ONLY Gil. )

***

Very rare was Vincent actually ever worried about his own well-being in any given intimate situation. He was not a personal risk-taker by nature (although he loved using other people to take those risks for him) and despite rumors about his licentious behavior among certain noble circles, Vincent took great, great care not to do anything stupid or excessively vulnerable, like impregnate a noblewoman or let a nobleman top him (no, those actions only led to the possibly of those aristocratic dogs controlling __him__ and Vincent was so much more clever than them anyway).

Yet he no matter how hard he tried, Vincent couldn’t stop his heart from racing as he swallowed hard, leaned into Gilbert’s embrace and tried to relax from his spot on Gilbert’s lap (he had seduced Echo from his brother’s position so many times before: how strange and almost frightening it was to be sitting in her place this time). He let his eyes shut with a bodily shudder as Gilbert’s hands progressed from stroking his stomach toward petting his waiting groin.

“Vince, you’re shaking,” Gilbert commented in hushed tones, and Vincent angled his head to stare at Gilbert; a coy but snappish reply worked its way up to his lips, but Vincent pushed it down, because his ever-so-gentle brother was right about something: only Gilbert could make him tremble like this.      


	19. Chapter 19

Elliot/Leo 69

***

lliot heard Leo give a drawn-out moan from around Elliot’s cock; he tried not to buck upon feeling Leo’s warm mouth take in his length and pull down, so firmly, so intently, so (oh blessed gods above, where did Leo learn how to _do_ that—). Elliot was lying on top of his servant, panting and trying to focus on his own task at hand (but how could he, Leo was so good; no, he had to do this right- oh gods, Leo, you’re perfect, you’re perfect, you’re-); the competitive side of Elliot flared out to tackle his lust; he _will_ pleasure his partner, he’ll do it even better than L-(what, oh Elliot couldn’t come yet, not when he hadn’t even started on his part!). A soft popping sound from between his legs and Leo’s smirking voice calling, “You’ve never been afraid of my cock before,” made Elliot growl, “I’ll show you something to be afraid of!” before deep-throating the pulsing length before him; with a surprised cry, Leo thrust into Elliot’s mouth, nearly gagging him, but despite the tears that welled up in Elliot’s eyes, he thought triumphantly, “I’ll show you, Leo, I’ll show you (oh, oh, geez, now he’s starting to lick right _there_ -)“     


	20. Chapter 20

AdaxVincent

***

“Now, according to the Obdwala moon chart, our signs are at the height of their passions; do you feel passionate right now, Vincent?” Ada inquired sweetly as she tightened the knots that tied Vincent down to the stone slab (a sacrificial slab to the goddess of I-mya Ada had explained during their first date to the Vessalius’ second mansion, though Vincent had _no idea_ why he was being sacrificed to anything, thank you very much). Great, just _great_ – Vince had agreed to dinner and a stroll in the mansion’s gardens, but how in the _freakin’ Abyss_ did he end up… oh _gods_ ; fighting down the ball of panic that was bouncing from the pit of his stomach up to his throat, Vincent said in a somewhat strangled voice, “I certainly feel like I’m under the influence of something, sweet lady.”

“Wonderful, the goddess’s power is speaking through us!” she squealed, straddling his legs and coaxing his length to life with her soft hands and sweet mouth (Vince had to admit, her influence on him in __that__ matter was undeniable); the further she went, the less Vincent minded this situation (perhaps it was the power of I-mya working after all).


	21. Chapter 21

Liam/Break, purposely falling off the bed.

***

“Um, Xer-Xerxes, I-I can’t-” Liam stuttered, desperately gripping Break’s hips as he rode him; Break could only imagine the expression of uncontrolled lust on Liam’s face at the moment (well, he had no choice, really, since his blindness had permanently settled in); the rest of Liam’s sentence threw him off completely, however – both literally and sexually: “see, um, my glasses, they seemed to have fallen off when we, um, had, um, switched positions-“ 

Break growled, thrusting harder as he retorted, “ _ _You’re__ worried about not seeing, Liam-?” and he quickly tilted his pelvis to the side, toppling Liam from his place on top; Break, annoyed as their limbs got tangled up in the sheets, snapped, “Well, why don’t I teach you a new lesson on sexual adaptation in the bedroom, or _ _maybe__ I should teach you some basic manners about how to address your visually-impaired superiors!”

Break grappled with the bed covers until he grabbed Liam around the shoulders: “A man,” Break panted, kissing Liam full on the mouth as he shifted both their weights until he felt the sheets slipping from beneath them, and the sudden presence of gravity pulling them down, “should always be prepared for action in any situation,” and he smirked, envisioning Liam’s panicked expression just before they both hit the floor with a resounding __thud__.


	22. Chapter 22

vincent/oz, noncon, and gil walking in? :

***

Oh, it never ceased to surprise and enrage Vincent how much the boy resembled Jack, even moreso than the Vessalius wench did, and Vincent balled up his rage as he thrust into that young and unprepared body screaming beneath him, feeling warring thoughts echo through his head: that _how dare he look like Jack_ , a man in whom Vincent had put so much innocent trust all those years ago before he hurt Gil and betrayed them both, and _how dare he look like Jack_ , and how sickening it was to have this insolent doppelganger seduce his precious older brother away from Vince. A berating voice warned Vincent that this would upset Gil so much, that this crime would make Gilbert hate him forever, but it didn’t matter to Vincent, because he was sure that his brother hated him anyways, no matter how much Vince loved him in return. Perhaps that was why when the door burst open and Gilbert ran into the room, Vincent had rolled off the crying boy so easily, that flaring rage dissipating like smoke, and it was Vincent who curled up into a ball, silent and unmoving, as Gilbert gathered his precious, whimpering Oz into his arms and said in a low, throaty growl, “You have ten minutes to leave here, Vince, and I _never_ want to see you again,” – because deep within, Vince knew that this was what he truly wanted from Gil: to be remembered forever in his brother’s heart, even if it was like this, even if it was only for this…


	23. Chapter 23

ElliLeo with Oz peeking/watching and Leo knows it.

***

Leo admitted to himself that his rapacious reading habits had stimulated his imagination in ways that reality simply couldn’t fulfill at times; he wasn’t unhappy at all about how the state of his current relationship would not be able to match up to the erotic fantasies he nursed in the privacy of his own room (he still used his room to get some peace and quiet and to actually do some schoolwork, since being around Elliot inevitably lead to unproductive work habits); but when he noticed the young Vessalius boy peeking through the door to Elliot’s rooms while they were engaging in said unproductive work habits, Leo felt a devious spark run through him: this was a perfect opportunity to fulfill a secret desire he had for awhile now. 

“Please,” he whispered to Elliot, “let’s make this more exciting, shall we?” and taking a cue from one of their long-held games, Elliot grinned and clamped his hands over Leo’s wrists as he pinned him to the couch, saying, “You’ll be mine, you dirty street whore, all mine to screw and there’s no one here to stop us,” (Elliot was delightfully enthusiastic about role-playing, as long as he got the more manly role).  

 _ _But of course there’s someone who could,__ Leo thought, getting harder over the possibility that Oz would come bursting in their room at any moment, that they were just seconds away from getting caught; yet when the door remained ajar and Leo glanced over quickly to see Oz frozen in morbid fascination, his arousal peaked even further, with his fantasies running on overdrive as he moaned, “Take me then, you scandalous prince, take me like there’s no tomorrow…” 


	24. Chapter 24

Gilbert/Ada Involving Gil's hat?

***

The felt had worn down along the sides; it had tendency to fall of out shape because Gilbert had stopped taking it to the haberdasher’s to get it re-blocked years ago (too expensive); and there had been a dirt stain or two that would never come off no matter how hard Gilbert scrubbed. Nevertheless, his hat was one of Gilbert’s prized possessions: a symbol that even after he had rejected the Vessalius household and joined the Nightrays, the first family he ever remembered still accepted him with open arms; and that was why he took special care to wear it when he spent time with the person who had given that hat to him.

That person in question stretched out her bare arms in the morning sunlight and grabbed his hat from the bedside table, plunking it on top of her head with a cheeky smile: “How do I look?” she said flirtatiously, tilting it jauntily to the side.

“Like a lovesick fool,” Gilbert murmured, gathering her in his arms; she protested that he didn’t look like a fool when he wore it, but perhaps, a little bit lovesick, and for that comment, Gil let her keep his hat on as he rolled on top of her and expressed just how lovesick he really was.   


	25. Chapter 25

oz/gil, picnic, somehow make it angsty and fluffy? :D

**

“Remember the first time we came here?” Oz murmured, somewhat sleepily, at the end of the evening, nestling his head against Gilbert’s chest as both of them watched as the sky changed colors from warm golds and reds to the luminescent hues of twilight; his eyes were starting to droop (must be the wine), and Gilbert tenderly untangled the stem of the glass from his fingers and tucked it beside the picnic basket.

Gilbert’s heart twisted at the mention; he hoped that Oz wouldn’t recall the memory; perhaps the alcohol had affected his sense of tact and that was why he chose to bring up their last evening together, alone, before leaving for the old mansion the following morning on their journey to the former Vessalius manor….

Feeling obligated to reply, Gil started, “Well, I…” but Oz went on, snuggling ever closer to Gil and tilting his head upwards, giving a soft smile with his reply: “That was when I first kissed you,” and Gil’s heart thudded with relief and a hint of grief (yes, that was true that they had confessed some shy desire to each other on that day years ago, but it was the only moment they cherished together before being separated for a long ten years….)


	26. Chapter 26

Leo/Elliot extremely dom!Leo

***

Elliot wasn’t sure what to make of the situation: he knew that sometimes Leo tended to have an overactive (and very dirty) imagination (that new yellow lithography collection he had acquired in town last month didn’t help), and that ever since the exam period had begun, they hadn’t have time to _properly_ be together because of study time, but he had no idea – oh gods, no idea _at all_ – about Leo’s frustration – oh, geez, five minutes before the test proctor would close the room, five _freakin’_ minutes – until…until…

“L-Leo, please hurry,” he stuttered, panting and wrapping his legs around his servant as Leo started undoing the buttons of his trousers, “Our oral examinations are starting in five min-umphf!”

Leo grinned as he tied a secure knot around Elliot’s mouth using his own undone bow tie; the rest of his master was trussed up well enough for what he wanted to do:  “I’ll show you an oral examination,” Leo growled, roughly yanking down Elliot’s white dress slacks over those angled and strong hips, forceful enough to cause Elliot to buck helplessly in reaction; _ _Elliot was a good enough student,__ Leo reasoned, __he could afford to fail one class this semester….__


	27. Chapter 27

Nightraycest. ~ 

***

Sometimes, Vincent supposed, a situation with his older brother could – theoretically – go too far to his liking; Vincent hated to admit to those moments when he pushed too much, when he thought Gil could take any provocation in a manner where Vincent would still remain in possession of this delicate and intimate situation; and, as a last resort (as he always did with any other tryst that crossed the line), he could use the Dormouse to put his partner to sleep (that was one of the many reasons why he contracted his Chain after all – it was the ultimate fail-safe to his risky behavior). 

And yet now, with his face pressed against the rough brick wall of the mantle-place and feeling the blood start to well from the scratches on his cheeks, with his legs spread wide and arms pinned against his backside, feeling the tip of Gil penetrate his unprepared entrance as his knees began to buckle from the onslaught of fear and panic-laden lust, Vincent gasped, trying one last time to assuage his brother’s fury: “Gilbert, I was __joking__ about Oz, I’d never hurt your master, never-“

“Shut up,” Gilbert growled, his voice deepening with his rage, “Why don’t you ever just. Shut. Up!” but Vincent couldn’t, he just couldn’t keep quiet, grappling at the slivers of words as they spluttered and splattered and __failed__ into a jumble of half-said pleads and moans, because Gilbert wouldn’t __listen__ and Vincent knew he was – letting – __go__ –  ( _ _thank you, big brother, thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank-)__


	28. Chapter 28

Elliot/Leo, giant robots.

(WTF? Okay, I’m making this one STEAMPUNK.)

***

Elliot lifted the goggles from his brow and wiped it with a ragged, grease-stained cloth as he unwheeled the dolly he lay on from beneath the chassis of the giant iron-smelt automaton looming in the middle of the Nightray back lawn; Claude had always been the tinkerer in the family, but with him and Ernest away on the hunt for the Headhunter, when one of the vassal’s huge machines had broke down, it was up to Elliot to use some knowledge from his Humanoid Design Mechanics class and figure out the problem himself.

“Any luck? Leo inquired, lowering down his multi-lens brass-framed spectacles and placing them on the table; he had been working on repairing an intricate watch fob that also served as the triggering mechanism for the said robot; apparently, claimed the owner, when the fob was set to a certain time, the aetheretic-absorption properties were unleashed, and thus enabling the fob to perform as a power-generating key, which, once installed in the center of the automaton’s chest, would provoke its steam-powered engines and bring the rusted machine back to its self-functioning capabilities.

Elliot pecked Leo on the mouth, gave a sideways grin, and replied, “I’m not sure about the effectiveness of this model’s flux capacitor, but I’m well-assured that as soon as Gilbert returns from that mission hunting down those airship pirates, he’ll be able to clue us in on some information about this infernal contraption. But in the meantime,” Elliot put down the watch fob Leo was holding and guided his hand to a much more interesting place, “let’s create some steam for ourselves.” 


	29. Chapter 29

Oz/Gil/Vincent, angst, anything goes for this one~? 

***

Gilbert could sense the two of them eyeing each other from either side of him, each a predator assessing the strengths of the other – no, predator was too harsh of a word, and besides which, it implied that Gilbert was nothing more than prey, and he hated to think of himself lowered to being nothing but a bit of meat to be fought over between two hungry animals.

Not that Gilbert could say much in protest over their behavior, with Oz’s length being shoved down his throat and Vincent’s plunging into his arse; Gil blinked away tears from the pain and the gag reflex; this wasn’t going well, both of them moved off-rhythm inside of him, and Gilbert tried to make some sort of sound of protest that got shut down with another stab from his brother, or another shove from his master-

 _ _Please, please, enough, stop__ , he thought desperately, but the low whimper he emitted got cut off from Oz gripping his shoulders and thrusting, once again, harshly, and Gilbert thought he was going to vomit and begged with his eyes, but the two of them just kept going and he thought, pathetically, that he didn’t really matter to either of them if is was what was happening, that he was only there to be used and to prove a __point__ , and he regretted that he was persuaded to do this at all.


	30. Chapter 30

Elliot/Gil, sexually experimenting?

***

“Are you sure you’re all right with this?” Elliot whispered, cupping his adopted brother’s cheek and gently turning his head so that those golden eyes gazed straight into his; he could feel something trembling between them as Elliot lay across Gilbert’s body – how inadequate he felt at that moment, stretched across Gilbert but feeling the tips of his toes brush against the calves of his taller brother’s legs – and he wasn’t sure if the root of that vibration came from Gilbert or himself.

“I-I mean,” he went on, running his fingers through Gilbert’s too-soft dark hair, “I always wondered, what it would be like… with a guy… and… Leo… well, I dunno, if-“

“If he’d return the feeling,” Gilbert finished for him, stroking the edge of Elliot’s cheek with the back of his hand, and adding, somewhat wistfully, “I felt the same way once with someone I cared for very much,” but before Elliot could ask who that person was, Gilbert’s parted mouth was pressed against his and Elliot closed his eyes and took advantage of how understanding – and accommodating – Gilbert was.


	31. Chapter 31

Leo/Elliot, in that order, involves chains.

***

“No, you _won’t_ get tetanus just because they’re a little rusty,” Leo huffed through his fringe and crossed his arms, looking at Elliot chained spread-eagle to the bed; he knew that his master had been a bit hesitant when Leo first suggested their latest experiment together, and he knew that Elliot only agreed to bottom this time because it was the anniversary of their first meeting together, but _still_ , if Elliot was truly uncomfortable, he could always just say _no_ , and Leo swore he wouldn’t take issue with it; Elliot knew that he had treated Leo with the same mutual respect and so why would Leo try to do anything Elliot didn’t like? 

“Elliot, if you want me to let you go, say so,” Leo said (though hitting him upside the head with a pillow when he made this statement probably didn’t help matters any); Elliot blushed even a deeper red than before Leo had snapped the manacles in place and said, somewhat defiantly in the same way two-year-olds were defiant when acting up in the middle of the marketplace: “No! I’m fine, Leo, I’m fine; it’s only that I want us to be, um, safe, y’know?”

“When have I ever let you feel unsafe?” Hurt slipped into Leo’s voice at that statement and Elliot bowed his head, biting his lower lip, and yet when Leo reached for the key on the bedside, Elliot lifted his chin and licked the curve of Leo’s neck with the murmur, “Please, don’t, I’m okay, really,” and continued to murmur, “okay, Leo, yes, Leo, please, Leo,” as he returned the favor and thensome. 


	32. Chapter 32

gil and vince, one brother handcuffed.

(Hmmmmm, this took me a long time to decide whether I wanted to have another sub!Vince for tonight… or not. This is AU, btw, if Gilbert had found Vince after he kidnapped Leo.).

***

The two of them remained silent for a long, long time; Vincent wondered if he had upset his brother and leaned forward, or as forward as he could with his hands cuffed to the table leg; he jerked when he reached the extent of his restraints and once again, collapsed back against the hard, wooden support; a stifled giggle escaped from his lips at realizing that they were at a true stalemate.

From his spot on the floor, Vincent looked over at his older brother through lowered eyelashes; how anxious Gil appeared from across the room, perching on the edge of the wooden chair and facing the window, lonely silhouette framed in the light of the full moon; Vincent wanted to reach out and massage those tense shoulders, knead his knuckles into that tightly coiled flesh, trace his fingers down the vertebrae of Gil’s back and feel the stress flow out from beneath his fingertips.

“Is brother worried when Pandora comes to arrest me?” he asked, playfully, knowing that as soon as Gilbert’s back-up arrived to rescue the unconscious servant boy and take Vincent away, one command from Demios was all he needed to be rid of them; that didn’t resolve the issue of Gil’s handcuffs, however, and so, once more, Vincent asked, “Big brother wouldn’t let them punish me, would he?” and when Gilbert finally made his way across the nighttime darkness, Vince thought with relief that his brother truly cared, until wordlessly, Gilbert removed the small silver key from his pocket and dropped it unceremoniously down the floor’s heating vent.  


	33. Chapter 33

Alyss and cheshire cat c: <3

***

Alyss smiled serenely as she tipped the teapot forward, letting the flow of dark amber liquid pour into the fragile set of cups on the table; it was four ‘o clock and time for tea, time for tea; she hummed merrily to herself as she assembled the floating stuffed creatures and marionettes around her, and of course, she must offer them some cake and biscuits and jam and tarts (if anyone else were to witness this scene, they would have seen empty cups and plates being passed around, but to Alyss this was their daily tea and it was so splendidly prepared.)

“Cheshire, time for tea,” she sang, adjusting her place at the head of the table with a little giggle as her favorite pet appeared from underneath the tablecloth, laying its head on her lap and purring as Alyss got him a cup and saucer and several of the most delightful sweets from the silver-tiered display in front of them.

Cheshire mewed, “Cheshire wants some milk,” and pawed at her lap and nuzzled between her thighs, making the most sad little noises until Alyss stroked his head and whispered, “Only the freshest milk for you my dear,” pulling aside skirts and petticoats and silken drawers to reveal that soft, sweetness that her pet adored so much; as Cheshire lapped eagerly at that sweet, sweet center of herself to let her juices flow, Alyss let her head fall with a gasp (This was the best part of tea time, oh yes, yes it was).


	34. Chapter 34

Gil/Vince fluff

***

Gilbert didn’t remember much of anything from his past, and he didn’t remember anything about his younger brother, and most of all, he didn’t recall a single thing about _fishing_ ; he couldn’t even draw upon any experience from his time in the Vessalius household about the subject and so was pretty much at a loss when Vince placed the hook and worm in his hands and asked if he could bait the line for him.

For the next several minutes, Gilbert struggled with the line, getting the string tangled in his fingers, or letting those disgusting little worms slip from his fingers to plunk in the water, or, once, forgetting that the line was attached and accidentally knocking Vincent’s entire fishing pole into the water while trying to untangle a knot; Vincent paid no mind, only laughing and clasping his hands together, teasingly commenting, “Oh, big brother tries so hard!”

Eventually, Gil figured out how it worked and as a lazy summer sun arched through the sky, the two brothers sat side by side on the pier, kicking their legs over the cool water and waiting for success; when Vince finally caught a trout (not very big, but better than Gil), the look of triumph on his little brother’s face took Gil unawares, reminding him of tiny Ada whenever she accomplished something, and instinctively, he leaned down and kissed Vince’s cheek in a congratulatory gesture; in reaction, Vince dropped his catch in the water, but that didn’t really matter, Vince said afterwards as he blushed, as long as Gil was proud of him.


	35. Chapter 35

Alyss and Kevin, (Kevin's thoughts)

***

At first, for the longest time, Kevin was unable to think of that pixie-like, white-haired girl without the figurative and literal wash of crimson obscuring his vision; he’d crouch on the window sill, scowling at the bleak winter sky and vowed to himself that he’d kill her, he’d kill her, he’d return someday and get rid of her forever and ever and ever. Only later, once his injuries had long since healed, did Kevin contemplate the girl’s situation more: her crystal tears, her insane laughter, her pale, sickened expression of fear from the appearance of the boy with the bi-colored eyes; he didn’t forgive her at all, but at least felt puzzled over her myriad extreme emotions, and even a bit disappointed in his realization that, of course, while she fulfilled his wish, she was never really the savior he hoped she would be when he first made that deal with White Knight.

In the end, after more time passed until no one knew Kevin as Kevin any longer, but as Xerxes Break, did he come to the realization that Alyss was but a girl, a trapped little girl who had suffered as much as he did, and that, perhaps, this girl deserved his pity; and if she deserved his pity, she also deserved his mercy, and Xerxes Break knew from his years as Kevin Regnard that the best form of mercy was a quick and painless death.


	36. Chapter 36

Oz and Elliot, a Drunken Rendezvous

***

Messy it was, with stumbling footsteps and fumbling fingers and the smell of alcohol mixing the scent of sweat and a heavier musk that seemed to fill Oz’s nose and make him dizzier still as he pushed Elliot backwards into the divan and tore at his vest and skirt and cravat.

 Elliot blinked up blearily between sloppy kisses and rough fondling through the groin of Oz’s pants; he slurred into Oz’s ear to get off and let him do it, he was too drunk to figure this out, and Oz protested that of course he knew how to take off clothes; and he did this to Gil all the time without issue, but that wouldn’t stop Elliot, and soon Oz was on his back on the carpet and feeling the cool air hit his loins as Elliot pulled off his clothes…

And the rest of the night became a blur of sensation and touch and vertigo but when Oz awoke the next morning on the floor cuddled beside the taller boy and feeling the effects of a hangover muddle his senses, he could only think to himself, “Gods, that is the __last__ time I drink tequila.”

 


	37. Chapter 37

Leo/Elliot Gunplay

***

Leo didn’t like being violent (much) or, at least he didn’t like the idea of violence, and so using the gun he owned never came naturally for him, and he only took it out whenever it was necessary; this occasion wasn’t necessary, persay, but it certainly was significant, though Leo kept checking the barrel to be sure he removed the bullets at least twice while dragging the cold metal across the curve of Elliot’s ass cheeks.

Elliot was muttering to himself, caught in the sensation of Leo’s slick fingers plunging into his tight arse, but when Leo dragged the revolver’s muzzle across his crack, Elliot leapt nearly off the bed.

“Oh gods, yes, please Leo, do it, do it, do it,” the blond boy begged, looking at Leo with a wanton glint in his eye; once more, Leo snapped the barrel open and shut before pouring a generous amount of oil along the etched steel, somehow feeling inner tension coil in his chest and believing the illusion that Elliot’s life was in his hands and he could destroy it all, and with that thought came a sense of overwhelming dominance and lust as Leo slipped the gun muzzle into Elliot and pulled the trigger. 


	38. Chapter 38

Some Gil/Alice fluff  
***

Gil assumed that being barely human, Alice had quite a bit to learn about relations between people; Lady Sharon had been giving her casual instructions about basic etiquette and social instruction, and while some lessons failed drastically (Gil’s cheek still hurt at the memory of Alice’s “kiss”), others, he suspected were catching on.

Sitting across from Alice during dinner at his apartment one evening (Oz insisted that whenever he visited, Alice should come along too, which was perfectly fine, really, as long as Gilbert remembered to tuck all fragile items in safe places beforehand and go to the bank to withdraw another portion from his emergency funds to help pay for the meal), Gilbert observed how much more her eating habits had improved; what took Gilbert aback the most, however, was her observation: “Seaweed head, why don’t you ever eat the meat you cook?”

 _Because I can’t afford to feed the three of us this stuff,_ he thought begrudgingly, but before replying, Alice circled the table to his seat with her fork, pierced with a piece of rare steak, and stuck it in his face: “Eat it – it’s good!” she commanded; Gil flushed and glanced at Oz, who was chuckling behind one palm, and with a resigned sigh, leaned in to take a bite only to taste something much softer and more pleasant; when Alice pulled away from their kiss, mischief lurked in her eyes and said, as Oz laughed behind her: “Lady Sharon calls that ‘acting coy.’" 


	39. Chapter 39

Break's family life? (As Kevin)

***  
  
Kevin Regnard came from a family of high-ranking knights that had an illustrious history of service. His father, in particular, he idolized when he was younger but grew more disenchanted with as he grew older. This was not to say that they had a terrible relationship; in fact, they were close for his father’s entire life. The elder Sir Regnard taught him everything he knew about service, honor and duty. But, then on the other hand, Sir Regnard, though he had a reputation of some renown, lived those times during his youth, and as Kevin grew older, he realized how much his father had gone to seed. After the adventures fighting off invading armies and blotching assassination attempts against his lord, the patriarch lived “far too old for a knight to live” some would whisper, indulging in banquet dinners and regaling a crowd of young admirers, both male and female, with his tales of glory.    
  
Sir Regnard grew lazy, he got fat, and he spent far too much of his time drunk than sober. Near the end, the senior knight developed the “mellitus” (what we refer to as diabetes) from his rich diet, and the effects were horrifying to witness.   
  
The death of Sir Regnard came in a series of losses, each new one more undignified than the last. He first lost all of the weight he gained, becoming rail thin in a matter of months. He lost control of his bladder and Kevin had to oversee those embarrassing moments where his father’s servants would clean his toilet at spontaneous moments of the day. He lost toes, then fingers, then his left foot completely. He lost the ability to hear, and finally, the ability to see.  
  
When his father finally passed on, Kevin vowed that he would never let his body become destroyed in such a horrific manner…. And he also vowed never to drink again. 


	40. Chapter 40

Headcanon about Break's family life (As Xerxes)

***  
  
The first thing Break did after he somewhat recovered from his injuries he sustained upon leaving the Abyss was inquire after the Regnard household. When he was in service with the Sinclairs, he had kinsmen who were with him, and he hoped, by some unlikely odds, that if the Intention of the Abyss had truly changed time itself, someone would have survived…  
  
It turned out that a brother-in-law of his that had served with him had escaped, unharmed, and was still living, though old and senile, in a small village in the mountains. Many times, Break pondered whether he should travel there to visit the last living member of his family and he sent a letter of inquiry (disguised, innocently enough as an invitation to the Rainsworths for an upcoming ball).   
  
The letter was returned, unopened, with a note scribbled on the back, saying that “the ancient Sir has long stopped caring for the affairs of nobility, may they all burn in the fires of the Abyss.“    
  
Break decided this was definitely a sign that he was family and traveled the three-weeks’ journey to see the old fellow. He managed to have tea with the gentleman, who really was quite senile, and politely inquired about his past with the Sinclairs after the third cup.  
  
The old knight told him the story about what happened to the Sinclair family that Break knows now. In the end, he added, sadly, "If only I could’ve changed the past….”  
  
Break commented, “Well, most say that’s impossible…”

The old man arched an eyebrow, sipped his cup, and remarked, “What made you think I didn’t try anyways?”  
  
Break left the old man to die a quiet death, instead of arresting him for being an illegal contractor. He never reported him to Pandora.


	41. Chapter 41

Songfic drabble: Adele - Rolling in the Deep 

***

 _The scars of your love remind me of us_  
 _They keep me thinking that we almost had it all_  
 _The scars of your love, they leave me breathless_  
 _I can’t help feeling_  
 _We could have it all_  
 _(You’re gonna wish you never had met me)_  
 _Rolling in the deep_  
 _(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)_  
 _You had my heart inside your hand_  
 _(You’re gonna wish you never had met me)_  
 _And you played it, to the beat_  
 _(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)_  

“Do you think he suspects?” Levi relaxed his folded arms along the wooden scrolling on the divan where Lacie reclined, his pale locks draping themselves like cobwebs across the rich red velvet. She reached up and tangled the wisps of white between her fingers. His hair had gotten much thinner the past few months: only one of the many signs of his impending death.

She followed the Duke Baskerville’s lazy gaze out the window where Jack and Glen conversed in the garden. “No,” she said, gently. “Though Jack is almost too adorable nowadays. Do you what he said to me the other day in bed?” She removed her hand and several pale strands drifted onto the cushions.

Levi smiled down at her, flicking his head back to reveal one gently sloped eyelid. “No, what?”

She quoted, “ ‘ ** **I can’t help feeling, we could have it all****.’ ” A bitter laugh as she moved her hand down to her midriff. She wasn’t showing yet, but since her cycle had stopped last month, she knew that Levi’s experiment had “succeeded.”

“How romantic of him.”

“And you know what I said? ****‘You’re gonna wish you had never met me.’**** The lovesick boy only laughed.” Lacie turned her face away from the window and levered herself up from the divan, stretching slowly. She wished that Jack’s words touched her, or even for the irony to amuse her. But the last few weeks, Lacie moved through life like a ghost, moving ** **to the beat**** of Death’s drummer. Her days lacked any sense of living, and her nights were deserts of emptiness as she let her sense of self go ****rolling in the deep****. There, she tried to imagine oblivion. It used to horrify her when she was younger. But now, all she felt was a barrenness in her heart, in contrast to the growing fullness in her womb.

Almost as if sensing her thought, Levi circled around the divan and touched her waist, letting his hands linger over her belly that held their unborn child. She covered her hands over his. They felt ice cold.

What a parody of love this was, unlike Jack’s love for her, the one where she ****held**** his ****heart inside**** her ****hand****.

“Cherishing ****the scars of your love**** , darling?” she asked with a wan smile. The ‘darling’ was an ironic affectation. Like everything else in her doomed life.

“Perhaps. They ****remind me of us****.” Levi leaned over for a kiss. __How strange,__ Lacie thought as their lips met, __how much the old man craves affection so close to the end.__

And a tiny voice, somewhat resembling Jack’s (or maybe, resembling her own determined but innocent one from years ago) repeated in the back of her head, “ _ _Because ** **t _ _hey keep me thinking that we almost__**** -__”

Lacie killed the thought before it finished.


	42. Chapter 42

Songfic drabble: PH ending song

***

 _oys of the daylight_  
Shadows of the starlight  
Everything was sweet by your side, my love  
Ruby tears have come to me, for your last words  
I’m here just singing my song of woe  
waiting for you, my love 

Evening light shifted over the darkening rose gardens of the Baskerville hideaway. Leo stood on the balcony, letting the chill twilight seep into his bones. The ****joys of the daylight faded**** and died as ****the shadows of the starlight**** arrived to take their place in the sky overhead.

“Is my Lordship cold?” came a voice behind him.

Leo jerked his head over his shoulder, his fingers curling against the stone railing. “I said never call me ‘lordship,’” he snapped harshly.

“Of course.” Vincent had brought out the Baskerville robe anyway to drape over his shoulders. The touch of his hands and the warm wool made Leo shudder. __If Elliot saw me like this-__

He threw the cape to the ground. “Why did you bring __that__?”

“Bitter, are we?”

Leo glared at his new valet. What a twist of fate, to have Elliot’s older brother now serving under him; Leo couldn’t tell if Vincent’s humble manner was somewhat provoking him. He was never close to the adopted “ward” of the Nightray family, but he knew well enough that Vincent’s kindness might as well only be another illusion. That whole clan was a pack full of liars, including that pathetic brother of his Gilbert (and he was the worst of all, because he lied to fool himself instead of fooling everyone else.)

Only Elliot had told the truth. That brash idiot noble; he’d throttle you half to death if you didn’t kick him in the face first, but at least he never lied to Leo. He was always so noble, always so much better than Leo could ever be-

He stopped himself as the first tear fell. A handkerchief was proffered by his side. Leo swiped it out of Vincent’s grasp. 

The other man didn’t comment, but Leo felt the need to say something before, before-

“Would my master like to return inside?”

“Oh no, I’m fine,” Leo spat sarcastically, “ ** **I’m here just singing my song of woe****.” A strange choking sound caught in his throat as he said it, though, and the handkerchief twisted in his grip. Suddenly, he finally voiced the thought that had been running through his head all evening. “I wish you never told me, Vincent.”

“What?”

“Those words.”

 _ _Though I had wanted to hear them__ , he thought. __I hovered over you, Elliot, watching the blood falling, thinking__ stupid _ _thoughts only__ stupid _ _people think in__ stupid _ _books, like how your blood resembled how ’ ** **ruby tears have come to me**** ’ and thinking you were dead, but praying ****for your last words****. But now that I know them…__

“He shouldn’t have been sorry!!” The scream burst from Leo with such force that Vincent took a step backwards, a look of shock disrupting the false calmness that he had swaddled himself in. Leo turned and threw the balled-up cloth in Vincent’s direction. “He should have never been sorry-!!!”

His knees went out on him; Leo heard the crack as they hit the cobblestones but felt nothing. He curled in on himself, covering his head in his arms. __I was ** **waiting for you, my love,**** to wake up, I wanted you to say, ‘I’m fine, Leo,’ or ‘Let’s go home, Leo’ or ‘This fucking hurts, Leo’ – anything, just anything but ‘I’m sorry.’__

Elliot shouldn’t feel sorry for something that was Leo’s fault.

“That idiot,” Leo sobbed as he felt Vincent drape the cape over his shoulders again and tucked his gloved arms beneath Leo’s elbows to help him onto his feet. “That stupid, stupid idiot….” 


	43. Chapter 43

Songfic drabble: Snow Patrol - "Run"

***

_Light up, light up  
_ _As if you have a choice  
_ _Even if you cannot hear my voice  
_ _I’ll be right beside you dear_

As the head of Glen Baskerville rolled upon the ground, the world turned to a standstill. Vincent stared – he knew it was Glen inside all along, even since he heard rumors about these sealing stones and suspected that the ghost of Jack Vessalius was nothing but a scoundrel concerning those stones (Jack was always the fool, never the hero, but no one ever knew except for Vincent, no one ever knew what a lying son of a whore the Hero of Sablier was.) Vincent kept the truth locked inside himself for years: away from Pandora, from the Baskervilles, and even from his brother. And when the specter resurfaced in the body of that Vessalius brat, Vincent still kept his secret because even if he suspected that Jack was plotting against them all (and he did, slightly), keeping Gil’s identity a secret was more important.

The expression of Gil’s face was indescribable. Even to Vince, who loved watching the waves of emotions play upon his brother’s delicate features, had trouble discerning the amount of shock, rage, and finally, despair and horror that rolled through Gil’s golden eyes and slackened his jawline and paled his skin so close to death…And yet, for all of these terrible emotions Vincent saw, some inner dawning also glowed inside his brother: that strange truth that seemed to whisper ** **, “Light up, light up”,**** in the space between them, like those odd flickers of light Gil had claimed to see when they were only children.

Before Vincent knew it, he was caught in that wave of feeling, pulled along the tide with his brother and everyone else as Gilbert started to scream, wailing on his hands and knees like something broken. No, Vince corrected, his brother had always been broken, only this was when he realized how deep the cracks have gone. ****__As if you have a choice__**** , Vincent thought bitterly, __not to act otherwise, now that you know the truth….__

And as Gilbert’s shoulders slumped into his final collapse, retreating inside himself to places so far down Vincent had no idea exactly where his precious brother went, Vincent pressed his head, slowly, cautiously, on the curve of Gil’s spine.

 _ _Nothing will be the same,__ he thought, feeling for the first time in so many years a certain measure of relief. No more hiding this truth, no more holding back. Even if Gilbert regained his awareness only to shoot Vincent in the face for the years of lies, Vincent realized he’d welcome the bullet with a smile.

“Don’t worry, brother, I’m still here,” he whispered. “Until the very end. ****Even if you cannot hear my voice.**** ” He tenderly pressed his hands against the bloodstained black canvas of Gilbert’s jacket where the blood splattered. “ ** **I’ll be right beside you dear.**** ”

__Until I leave your life forever._ _


	44. Chapter 44

Songfic drabble: Placebo -- "Sleeping with Ghosts"

***

 _Hush  
_ _It’s okay  
_ _Dry your eye  
_ _Dry your eye  
_ _Soulmate dry your eye  
_ _Dry your eye  
_ _Soulmate dry your eye  
_ _Cause soulmates never die_  

“Gil?” The name echoed off the stone walls of the Nightray mausoleum. After hearing no response, Oz stepped down the lichen-covered stones and entered that dry, cool air of the underground. He dragged a hand along a barren wall as his eyes adjusted to the dimly-lit room. He saw his lover slumped against the stone sarcophagus on the furthest side of the room, cigarette smoke drifting in the air.

Oz settled by Gil’s side and saw that he had went through almost an entire pack, each burned-out stub lined up in a neat row almost as if replicating the coffins surrounding them. He found Gilbert sniffling between drags of his latest cigarette; he opened his mouth to speak, but Oz replied with “ ** **Hush, it’s okay**** ,” and a kiss.

The two men settled on the stony ground. Oz hugged his knees, unsure of what to say. So much time had passed since those chaotic times, and so many people had been lost along the way….

Finally, Gilbert whispered, “I was thinking how I never…cried for them.”  He gestured a hand over the silent slabs. “Not that they were the kindest of people, really, but now….” A small item wrapped in oilskin sat by his waiting hand. “That’s their jeweled crest,” he said. “I came to return it. Should have done it sooner, when I renounced my title, should’ve…”

Was that pity crossing his face? Oz leaned his head on his shoulder. These Nightray nobles didn’t deserve Gilbert’s pity, he thought, even after their name fell into ruin and then obscurity. Elliot did, but as for the rest…

For all of the compassion Gilbert had shown to the most unlikely of people, Oz couldn’t fully comprehend what lead him to wander back to this ruined estate. “What prompted all this-?”

After a moment, Gil removed a stack of letters from inside his coat pocket. “From abroad,” he said. “Apparently, she never knew any of it. She was out in the wilderness on the far ends of the world and thought….”

Oz unfolded the letters and read through the top one. __“I understand the difficulty of your decision, my love, but I’ll wait until the matters of your homeland and the situation concerning your Dukedom are settled__ , _ _”__ read the flowing script, _ _“Only know that for how dedicated you are to your family, another one waits across the seas for you. I look forward to the day you finally send for us. And I believe, from the deepest core of my heart that you will someday. ** **Cause soulmates never die****.”__

“He had a wife and child.” Strangers’ names and faces. A pretty middle-aged woman and the young boy sitting in her lap. “She named him Fred too…”

“Yeah. That would’ve changed succession entirely. If anyone knew. Makes me feel like a thief.” Gil’s laugh came out harshly. “As if that’s the worst of my crimes.”

“So does the Nightray name-?”

“Nah. Not if there isn’t anyone else to acknowledge the claim. I can’t, since I withdrew. The monarch won’t, unless another noble house advocates for it. And who wants to advocate for the dead Nightrays anymore?”

As Oz leafed through the stack, Gil continued, “That’s their entire correspondence. She wanted me to donate it to our national library, so other people can read and know him as she did. It’s so odd, to see a different side of a person and realize they loved someone too. That they could be funny or sweet or kind. I never even knew him, really, except as a stranger who seemed to appear at the manor to judge me. But there was an entire life I never knew…” Gilbert’s throat caught, “I haven’t thought of any of them in years, Oz, but looking over it all again… All of them were only people. In the end. Only people.”

“Hey, ****dry your eye**** , there,” Oz moved to brush a tear from Gil’s cheek, but the dark-haired man turned his head away.  

“Please. They deserve something.”


	45. Chapter 45

Headcanon: On Oswald  
***

The position of Baskerville heir is an unusual one: while all other Houses place heavy emphasis on marriage, since the title isn’t an inherited one, but a selected one (and the workings of the House rather mysterious), the Duke Baskerville isn’t under political obligation to marry. Many past heads of the Baskerville House chose not to marry or raise families – perhaps because of the particular nature of their duties, many former heads refused to foster familial ties.

Rumors of unconventional relationships have circulated throughout the prominent noble Houses about the Baskervilles, which only added to the Baskervilles’ alienation and distrust by most of high society.

Oswald Baskerville never intended to marry; in fact, for a long time he pondered whether he could be sexually attracted to anyone at all. Levi once suggested that he try experimenting if he were truly curious, and so after a month’s planning to vet the proper partners, Oswald engaged in various sexual trysts for a week, with a new engagement every night. While all of these pursuits were (more or less) satisfying, Oswald didn’t feel the need to continue them afterward.

When he informed Levi of his decision, the older man laughed and said that he was much more methodical than his sister.


	46. Chapter 46

Headcanon: On Oswald (as Glen)  
***

When Oswald inherited the title of Glen Baskerville, he never realized how… loquacious some of the past Baskerville leaders could be, especially at night. Or how sexually active some of the spirits were during their physical lives. Sometimes, memories of their exploits leaked into Oswald’s dreams. Most disturbingly, the dreams he would get most often were of Levi and Lacie.

“You miss her so very much,” Levi’s voice said to him mockingly one night after Oswald woke, bathed in cold sweat with a pressing hard-on. “I’m only trying to help.”

Oswald never liked Levi’s sense of humor.


	47. Chapter 47

Elliot/Oz

***

Elliot didn’t want to admit he had any real concern towards the Vessalius noble, particularly because he noticed that the blond boy had been popping in and out all afternoon while Elliot was trying to practice his newest sabre exercises; as soon as Oz realized what the older boy was doing, he became insistent that Elliot be his instructor (when he complained about this to Leo, his valet only lowered his glasses a bit, titled his head, and replied dryly, “Wow, someone who shows up out of nowhere to ask services from you without bothering to note how you’d feel about it? I have no idea of _anyone else_ like that.”)

Elliot didn’t find that comment helpful in the least, but finally decided to offer his assistance to Oz after all (the boy had terrible form); the experience was more tedious than instructive, though, because Oz, though he claimed to have been taught basic swordplay by Lord Oscar years ago, kept needing to have his position straightened.

After twenty minutes of Elliot fidgeting with his stance (he was sure the boy could get better posture if he just _widened his feet a bit_ more… and why did he feel his face start to flush when standing in such close proximity to him– it was only because Oz was supposed to hold his hilt _past_ the hip), Elliot finally did what his instructor had once done to prompt good form; “Stiffen up, Vessalius!” he snapped, giving Oz a swift whack on the backside, but found, much to his discomfort, that the flirtatious expression Oz gave Elliot in return caused certain parts of him to obey his own command instead.


	48. Chapter 48

Ozbert with Oz topping from the bottom

***

“Harder, Gil!” Oz replied with a tug of the chain wrapped around his slim wrist; Gilbert was _trying_ , honestly he was, as his master yanked Gil’s collared neck forward, and yet he was sure that Oz’s goading was actually more of a hindrance instead of a motivation. His throat constricted; a strangled cry escaped from his lips as Gil thrust himself deeper into Oz’s hot tightness; his black locks tumbling forward to obscure his golden eyes as tears started to form at their corners.

“Oz—please—“ came the whimper – both from the intense pleasure (and the intense sensation of __not being able to breathe properly)__ ; “Loose—I want—“ but his master didn’t hear him, (or perhaps pretended not to hear him) and pulled harder at the leash until Gil’s body was drawn on top of Oz’s sweat-coated torso, and all Gil could do was gape with his tongue hanging out like some sort of wretched __animal__ , trying to get the air into his lungs as he continued to push himself up to the hilt into Oz’s hot, waiting bottom until Oz reached up to loosen the leather collar a notch and Gil felt himself tumbling into a whirl of relief and __air__ right before Oz’s eager tongue and teeth entanged against his own….


	49. Chapter 49

Something with Echo and Vincent

***

Echo smelled of clean laundry and of that pleasant buttermilk and vanilla lotion that Vincent ordered her to use, which seemed to tenderize that pale skin of her neck into a delicate piece of flesh made especially for Vincent to nibble and gnaw on playfully with his teeth; he felt Echo shift her slim hips in his lap in reaction, her head falling upon his shoulder as a tiny gasp – _A mechanical reaction? A genuine emotion?_ Vince wondered – flew from her lips.

During these moments, as Vincent’s damp hair dripped droplets of perfumed bathwater on Echo’s shoulders as he continued to move his lips along her neck, Vincent wanted to know whether Zwei felt these sensations deep inside this obedient persona Zwei created for him, and whether the Baskerville inside writhed in some sort of vicarious enjoyment or raged in spiteful jealousy whenever Vincent fooled around with Zwei’s female self.   

Either way, it didn’t matter to Vincent (he skillfully manipulated them both after all), and Echo provided so many innocent and hesitant reactions that Zwei never had; Vincent enjoyed how much desire he could stir from his placid servant, and he imagined that for every passive yet highly-aroused response Echo expressed, Gilbert’s reaction would be so very similar (except for more blushing, perhaps, or more half-hearted protests); if only Vincent ever got the opportunity to show his brother the same delights he gave almost nightly to his personal valet.  


	50. Chapter 50

Gil/Vince. Vincent teaching Gilbert.

***

“Move lower, brother,” Vincent murmured, watching the rise of Gil’s backside as his older brother sat on his chest, facing backwards; Gil’s hot tongue felt _so good_ as his brother intently sucked on the tender skin of his balls; Vincent felt the tip of his shaft rub against the underside of his brother’s chin – Gil never really needed to shave often, but the beginnings of his stubble hit against Vincent’s cock, causing him to buck with a moan.

Gilbert hesitated; Vincent heard the soft __pop__ as Gilbert stopped his motion; “I-I’ll choke you,” he whispered throatily, and Vincent grabbed his older sibling by the hips and pulled his pelvis backwards, purring, “Don’t worry; this is how it’s done,” but as Gil shifted to position his own stiffened member over Vincent’s waiting mouth, Vince had to lift his head from the pillows in order to take his brother whole; the action made Gil cry out and he sat, hard, on Vincent’s face as he completed their new position.  

 _ _Yes, yes, yes, thrust in it, give it to me,__ Vincent thought, suddenly dizzy from those wonderful noises his brother made while kissing and sucking and lapping at Vincent’s parts below as Gil’s cock plunged down his throat: __Big brother’s such a quick learner.__


	51. Chapter 51

Gilbert/Vanessa

***

When Gilbert was first introduced into high society, the one compliment that he received most often by the ladies in their attempts to instigate conversation was how simply  _surprising_ it was that he was an unrelated ward to the Nightrays, for he bore such close resemblance to his adopted noble sister Vanessa; he was sure that only instigated further ire on her part, and upon overhearing that comparison made to her face one evening, Gilbert watched as the Nightray woman stormed off the ballroom floor, her skirts flaring in indignation.

He followed (he didn’t know why exactly, it wasn’t as if seeing him would be a comfort to either of them right now) down the candelabra-lit corridors of the mansion and finally caught up with her at the entrance to the hedge gardens outside; by this time, she had gotten angry enough to kick off the heels she wore and slump against one of the classically-carved stone pillars that graced the start of the topiary maze.

Gil froze in the realization that them being alone would give no witnesses to anything that would happen (and from the expression on her face, maybe he __wanted a witness__ ), but nevertheless, he slumped across from her against the opposite pillar and began, “I’m sorry they keep on saying that-“ and seeing the way her expression did not believe the sincerity of his remark at all, Gil moved forward, the soft grass rubbing against the knees of his trousers, as he repeated, “ ’Ness, I’m sorry,”and placed a tender kiss on her lips to prove exactly __why__ he hated those vapid compliments as well; Vanessa resigned to his touch with a relieved sigh (“Those ignorant idiots” she murmured, wrapping her arms around her darling – and adopted – brother).  


	52. Chapter 52

Oz&Gil. Crossdressing kink.

***

Odd, Gilbert thought, running his hand along the stocking-covered legs of the young boy before him, how much Oz confessed his adoration for pretty young girls and yet it was him who asked specifically to dress up in all of these frills and lace and petticoats and spread himself upon Gilbert’s bed in such an alluring way; _I bet you loved flirting with those girls because you liked how pretty they appeared_ , Gilbert thought to himself, _and_ _you wanted to_ become _like them, not actually_ bed _them…_ (Of course, voicing that opinion aloud would only result in cats popping out from unexpected places the next day, so he kept this observation to himself).

Still, he couldn’t resist saying, “You’re beautiful this way, Oz, you’re so beautiful,” reverently as he undid the cording that kept the front bosom portion of Oz’s gown in place; the outfit was Ada’s from last season (gods forbid her from ever finding out they borrowed it), and Gil admired the way the silk and taffeta fell loosely to reveal Oz’s bare shoulders and how adorable Oz looked as he fidgeted beneath him at the kind words.

“Just __shut up__ ,” he replied, blushing furiously as Gil slowly pulled Ada’s slightly too-large gown down Oz’s frame to expose the next layer of clothing – corset, petticoats, bloomers, stockings (Oz demanded that he put on the full dress attire and that desire only affirmed Gil’s thought even more); Gil smiled, feeling both aroused and softly content, for he didn’t mind the process of undressing a woman, especially if that woman was Oz, and especially if he could continue to provoke such protests from his young master in the process.


	53. Chapter 53

Sharon and Ada!

***

Sharon always, always felt somewhat self-conscious about her body; she didn’t think of it very often, especially since her duties at Pandora and as the spy for the Rainsworth House kept her preoccupied most of the time; yet whenever it came to a certain time of year, when she’d watch the line of carriages line up in front of other manor houses or witness the sweep of beautiful young ladies being presented by their escorts as they departed the theater, she felt a sudden and deep pang in her chest.

Yet as she let Ada Vessalius undress her in her rooms at Lutwidge – the one place where she could roam the hallways unattended without anyone batting an eye about her youthful figure – Sharon tilted her head back on the divan, smiling at the sight of Ada’s own exposed plump, lovely breasts – part admiring, part desiring.

Ada was gorgeous, she was radiant, and she was so attentive as she stroked her hand down Sharon’s thigh toward her waiting core; the Vessalius girl slipped her fingers inside that wetness, and Sharon thrust wantonly, letting her eyes close, letting her limbs clutch and fondle and letting herself feel so utterly happy that Ada, who possessed the perfect womanly body, could love her in all of her incompleteness.  


	54. Chapter 54

Gil/Jack

***

While Jack expressed an easy-handed sense of surprise upon seeing Gilbert arrive at the garden in this dream-world that Sablier had created, Gil had no doubt in his mind why his unconscious desires would led him back to the Vessalius ancestor: that man he had failed, that man who had lurked in the form of whispered memories and imagined touches and devilish smirks that so resembled his younger descendant….

“I’m so very glad,” Jack confessed wistfully from behind Gil, and despite being as substantial as shadow in his mind, Gil could feel the heat of Jack’s palm through the layers of clothing between them; he turned to face him and said in a tiny voice, “Master,” feeling something delicate snap inside him as he uttered the word, unleashing a flood of pent-up emotion, roaring in his head and his limbs after so many lost years.

“I love you, Master,” Gil told him, and kept telling him, as he kissed Jack on the cheek, on his ear, on all of the dips and valleys of skin that became exposed beneath his hurried touch while they undressed (“My cute servant,” Jack chuckled, but kissed him in return as he worked his hands down Gil’s front, making that ghostly touch begin to __burn__ ); Gil’s words became a solace, a mantra, a prayer as they moved together as one through this insubstantial illusion; Gil knew that their touches were only edging toward the boundaries of the real, and yet this was the only reality he ever wished for and that was enough.  


	55. Chapter 55

eager!bottomVincent and reluctant!semeGil

***

Vincent trembled in anticipation on top of the coverlet of his bed (made up properly for once, and swept clean of all the bits of stuffing and torn cloth that usually littered the mattress); he crouched on his forearms and had his arse lifted and ready for his brother, but Gil, for all of his enthusiasm he had when they started this, kept delaying things in the most excruciating way; “Hurry, brother, please hurry,” Vincent begged and he threw a lust-driven look over his shoulder at Gil, who draped his body over his younger brother’s yet denied him any other relief.

He detected the whiff of anxiety in Gil’s voice, despite the arms that wrapped tightly around Vincent’s stretched torso as he replied, “We shouldn’t.. w-we should, I don’t know, Vin, we…. we…” and much to Vincent’s throbbing dismay, his brother actually started to __let go__ and __move away__ ; Vincent couldn’t let this happen ( _ _Simply. Could. Not__.) and thrust backwards while reaching out with his hands to grip Gil’s forearms, causing Vince to bury his face into the ripped pillowcase he lay on, choking him with the spurt of leaked stuffing that was forced out from a rip in the covering.

In that exposed and uncomfortable and wanton position, Vincent found himself sobbing directly into the pillow as his fingers gripped tighter around the flesh behind him (“Brother, you’re cruel, you’re so cruel, this shouldn’t have happened, you tricked me, why did brother trick me like this?”); the cunning side of Vince knew this was only an act, since he never cried like this in Gil’s presence and knew this action would only guilt his brother into compliance, but the other side of him confessed every nuance of feeling to be true, and Vincent __always__ wanted this, and he only wanted his brother to take him, and why did Gil deceive him into thinking this could ever, ever be true—and then Gil was on top of Vincent full-force once more and Vincent felt his brother’s cock press inside him with the hasty mutterings, “I know, I’m cruel, I’m a bastard, Vince, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods…”    


	56. Chapter 56

Gilbert- mastrubation

***

Gilbert usually did this late at night when he was sure everyone else in the Vessalius household slept (or in the early morning before the head steward expected him on duty, or in the mid-afternoon while Oz was being tutored by Miss Kate, or in the early evening if Gil was feeling particularly frazzled from his young master’s latest bout of teasing, or just before bed if he found himself particularly restless and unable to relax…) He knew what he did was wrong on some level – rumors that little boys who touch themselves were driven to do so by evil Chains tempting them to sin, and little boys who touched themselves too much were destined to be snatched away by monsters in the night and have their privates cut off for their gross misdemeanors.

Nevertheless, Gilbert couldn’t help but writhe and emit tiny, barely audible noises of pleasure (this time, in the bath, where the hot water could seep into all of the right places at once while the fingers of one hand stroked himself as the other slowly stretched and rubbed and entered an even naughtier place below); his body became flushed from the water’s temperature and from his lust as he arched his neck backwards and let wet tendrils of hair stick to his face and neck as a myriad of images flooded his young mind: some of young men he knew or handsome strangers in the street or his young blond-haired master – but what kept flashing through his mind between those shots was those of rusted chains, grabbing him and holding him and dragging him away into the deeper dark –


	57. Chapter 57

Oz and Vincent trying to beat each other at giving Gilbert pleasure.

***

Gil was never sure what Vincent thought of his young master; whenever the subject of Oz Vessalius came up between them, Vincent seemed to put on that noncommittal, inexpressive mask that he usually does, sitting by the window running his long fingers through his blond hair or intently trailing the cutting edge of his scissors methodically down the seam of one of his many ruined stuffed animals (by this point, Gil had gotten so used to that discomforting habit that he assumed his little brother did this not as a gesture of ill-will, but as part of that twisted compulsion of his). Never once was it clear in Gilbert’s mind whether Vincent was for or against Oz entirely, but Gilbert was still taken aback to see Vincent _and_ Oz waiting in his apartment when he came home that evening from Pandora and, moreover, to discover they had been _talking_ , and even (did Gil even dare consider it?), _plotting_.

No, not plotting, Gilbert realized, as he struggled against Vincent’s hold pinning his arms against his back while Oz raked his fingers down his bare chest (“Gil always likes to feel a little pain, doesn’t he?” Oz chuckled mischievously) before the boy pulled down his erection with a tight palm (Gil moaned loudly, only to have Vincent muffle his mouth with a rose-scented glove: “ _ _I__ know Gil likes it when he can’t scream,” came the silken hiss): not with those heated looks of rivalry they exchanged (even though they had both worked at tackling Gilbert to the ground to undo his clothes before tossing him, almost unceremoniously, onto the couch for his ravishment); and at that moment, it dawned on Gilbert through the haze of raw need that every touch (and every kiss, every stroke and pull and grasp and demand and whine and push and thrust and plead) was a feat in a  _ _competition__ , and oh sweet Abyss, Gilbert was nothing but a helpless judge (not that he minded, really…)


	58. Chapter 58

Vince/Gil/Oz. Follow-up to the previous drabble

***

And the ministrations from his brother and his master progressed further and further, until Gilbert wasn’t sure exactly how he got into certain positions or who was doing what to him except for moments of pure lucidity where one man or the other would present something with a superior and desirous lechery in his eyes; it was Oz who suggested spreading Gil across the kitchen table with his legs dangling for easy access (Gil protested,recalling the last time this happened, but he was stretched out anyways with a grin from his brother), but it was Vincent who had the tapered candle lubed and inserted into his arse, and it was Vincent who was at the base of the table, licking and stroking his cock and maneuvering the candle at _just_ the right spot, though it was Oz who stood at the head of the table, giving him an upside-down kiss while reaching with his fingers to twist and fondle his nipples.  

And now the taste of Oz’s lips and tongue were replaced with the hot musky taste of Oz’s cock; Gil worked his lips around the Vessalius noble’s member as he felt Vincent’s mouth leave his length and make a trail of spit and precum down that hollow where his leg and torso connected, along the curve of his arse and suddenly the candle was replaced with that moist, wiggling sensation—

A scream of wild abandon came from Gil, making him gag against Oz until the boy removed himself; “Damn it,” he heard the boy say in a hoarse voice; Gil wanted to ask his master why couldn’t they all just get along, (or at least he would’ve if he had any control over his vocal cords, which seemed instead to be connected straight down to the bodily center of himself); but then Oz was on the table, one skinny leg on positioned on either side of Gil and soon he was spreading himself above Gil’s wet cock; Gil saw Vincent’s hands reach to wrap around Oz’s waist from behind and he feared his brother was going to throw Oz to the floor and so he managed to yell, “Fuck me, Vincent! Fuck me, Oz!” and quickly, found himself being filled by one heat while diving down into another, and it was so good, it was so damned __good__ - 


	59. Chapter 59

Elliot/Leo one, cat themed, for Valentine's Day

***

The tiny stray kitten Elliot first encountered on his way back from training in the field house; it had just begun to rain and the poor thing had scampered over for shelter in a corner of the building beneath the roof awning; the tawny creature gave a pathetic little mew as Elliot looked around for any signs of passersby before scooping it quickly and plopping it into the inner pocket of his white tailcoats; immediately, he could feel the wetness seep through the outer waistcoat and shirt of his school uniform, but reassured himself that the fluttery heartbeat next to his own was worth it (as long as he didn’t get caught).

Safe back in his rooms at the Academy, Elliot let the kitten dry by the fireplace and got it a saucer of cream; in an hour, the scrawny animal had puffed out as its fur dried and was immediately running to and fro, picking at loose twists in the carpeting or nearly-invisible dust motes, and soon, Elliot created a little ball of rags on a string which he dangled in front of the kitten, making it jump and paw at the toy on its hind legs.

Laughter greeted Leo as he opened the door to see Elliot’s turned back and the kitten jumping onto his legs with a wee cry; Elliot’s face flushed when he saw Leo and he muttered, “It’s going back outside when the storm ends,” and Leo only smiled as he joined Elliot on the carpet and let him kiss Leo on the forehead; the servant was already familiar with Elliot’s habit of fostering kittens, and as a former stray himself, he had no qualms against this adorable habit of his master’s.


	60. Chapter 60

Gil/Vince - possessive Gilbert doesn’t approve of Vincent’s apparently promiscuous outings, when Vincent is and should be all his and his alone.

***

Gilbert sat in the kitchen, legs crossed, with one boot propped over his knee, tapping his fingers against the scared wooden tabletop where the servants took their meals; this was the spot directly opposite of the rear entrance-way that was closest to the side corridor leading to Vincent’s rooms, and so when Vincent slipped in after his latest meeting with the Baskervilles, he got the full-on expression of barely-repressed fury on his older brother’s face.

Vincent had half a second to flash the default expression he used when it came to confronting an angry Gil (that of a coy half-smile), which was exactly the wrong gesture to use (which is why he always relied on it); Gilbert flew out of his seat, the sides of his jacket flapping at his speed and immediately, the breath left Vince’s lungs as his back slammed against the heavy planks of the closed servant’s door.  

“Where-?” came the gruff demand, and Gil pressed his nose against Vincent’s coat, as if trying to make assumptions about the strong perfume Lotti wore (not that Vince and Lotti ever __did__ anything to warrant Gil’s concern; she just had a habit of covering herself in a cloud of scent); yet Vincent only widened his smile to use traces of that distinctive odor to his advantage, and when Gil began to remove that marked coat and the rest of his clothes in a combination of violent jealousy and vicious want, he replied between rough kisses, “Oh, Gil worries __so__ easily.”


	61. Chapter 61

A reminiscing Xerxes.

***

While to most people, wine helped them forget, for Xerxes Break, certain vintages helped him remember, especially after his lost his sight; it was the visceral sense-memories that stirred up past faces and times in the most clearest of details, and in this manner, Break considered himself lucky.

The only complication was that his sense of smell was so acute, he had to track down certain wines by their year in order to get the full-effect of conjuring up the right memory; if the vineyard was the same but the year different, Break got no reaction from it at all, or at the very best, a cloud of recollection where he had to focus on getting all of the specifics right.

That was why when Reim came in grumbling with a bottle of Merlot from a vineyard two hundred miles away, Break immediately asked, “And what year?” only to have Reim snap, “What does it matter?” but Break demanded him to open it anyway, which Reim did reluctantly and poured out two glasses; cradling the body of the wineglass between his fingers, Break sniffed delicately and smiled (“Don’t you remember, Reim? We shared a bottle of this when we celebrated our hiring at Pandora.”); along with seeing Reim’s look of youthful accomplishment from years ago, Break cherished imagining the touched expression on his coworker’s face upon realizing that Break had remembered this particular anniversary.… 


	62. Chapter 62

Alice/Oz

***

Both not having her human memories in addition to living most of her recollected life competing against the grotesque Chains of the Abyss, proved to be great disadvantages to Alice when she was trying especially hard to understand people (or at least individual people, or at least her manservant, who was the most important individual of all); it especially infuriated her that Oz had a habit of wandering off on his own instead of following her beck and call, and when she complained about this to Lady Sharon, she suggested that Alice consider other ways to interpret her relationship with Oz.

Perhaps that was why she found herself sitting on the divan at Pandora trying a trick from Oz’s book that he had used with his own valet: “I have decided,” she declared to him in serious voice (since this was a serious decision), “Not to refer to you as my manservant anymore. And so,” she added, “you have no need to refer to me as your mistress. We can be master and mistress to each other, as equals.”

Oz tilted his head, confused, and began to say, “But I’ve never called you-“ before Alice put a finger to his lips and said with a glint in her eye, “Which means that you can order me about whenever you want to, just as I can order you about too, Oz,” and placing a kiss upon his lips added, “I’ve given so many orders lately. Now it’s your turn to give me one.”


	63. Chapter 63

Gilbert, Drabble response to Retace 70

***

Those consoling syllables became a lifeline for Gilbert, steadying his tongue and his lips and his breath, moving the word with every inhale and exhale ( _master… master… master…._ ); his Master’s head weighed cold and heavy and unnatural, yet because of its magical preservation, all those features that flashed through Gilbert’s memory still remained: his fine strands of black hair (though limpid in his fingers), his sharply-planed face (though shallow in hue); only that dry, stale smell of preservation fluid that made his gloves stick to the palms of his hands ruined the illusion ( _master…master…master…)_ ; and yet when Gil lifted his gaze and saw the black, blood-smeared revolver beckon to him, the word that breathed the very essence of life seemed to depart like the sigh of a ghost leaving the shell of mortality ( _master… mast…er…_ ); before Gil knew it, the revolver also felt heavy in his palm, heavier than the dead man’s head in his arms….

And then the words he uttered shifted to form a question ( _ _master… who… hurt.. master… who…hurt…master…__ ), and Gil had the revolver raised and he was pointing to the man who started it, the man who only lied and lied and __lied__ ; vaguely, he recalled nothing but shadows of past faces forming a palimpsest over his reality ( _ _who…hurt…master…__ ); up ahead, he noticed Break approaching and in the corner of his eye, he saw Vincent leap suddenly (“Brother!”); the only thing that existed for Gilbert, however, was the stumbling boy entering the scene behind them both.

“Gilbert!” came the shout as the bullet ricocheted off the archway above Oz’s head; Vincent crashed into Gil, wrenching the gun from his grip, and Gilbert was shouting, clutching Glen’s head to his chest, (“Who hurt Master? Who? __Who?__ ”) and, in answering his question, Oz was beside him, arms around his waist, cradling the limb between them both as the tears fell: “I’m sorry, Gil, I’m sorry, I’m so very, very sorry….”    


	64. Chapter 64

Elliot/Sharon

***

Elliot pulled on his gloves, because she requested those from him, because Sharon was all about refinement of touch and feeling the cool, smooth sensation of silk gloves stroking her bare body made her squirm and moan in such an unsophisticated way.

Sharon was a finely-tuned instrument, Elliot thought, blushing over the comparison (because he was unused to being able to think about attractive women and doing attractive things to them, being just barely past his coming-of-age ceremony); her developing body was not unappealing, but delightful in all of its subtle nuances between child and womanhood:  the delicate curve of her small breasts and pert nipples, the subtle scattering of hair along her maidenhood, the way her slit thickened with juices so easily under his concentrated touch.

As the heat increased between their bodies, both bare except for the gloves, Sharon made cute staccato gasps of breath with each passing measure of time, and Elliot found himself rising to a crescendo in response; and when they kissed, moaning, as he pressed himself into her, Elliot thought, dizzily and oddly romantically for him, about what a beautiful and raw duet could be orchestrated using the gods’ first instrument given to humankind….


	65. Chapter 65

Vinny/Gil

***

The porcelain of the tub hurt Vincent’s knees but he paid no attention to that anymore than the cascade of warm water that fell onto his head, plastering his blond tendrils against his bare neck and shoulders; he was glad to use tumbling water as an excuse to let his eyes close as he kneeled before his brother under the hot showerhead, enjoying the sensation of rivulets of liquid flowing down his body and touching all of the right places as he sucked on Gilbert’s member.

Vincent couldn’t help peering, however, upwards through the outpouring stream at his brother – head tossed back, arms clenching the metal bars on either side of him that held up the shower curtain, making those endearing, little pants of his as he thrust his cock wantonly into Vincent’s mouth; suddenly, his older brother let go of the bars and yanked Vincent off his knees; the blond took this moment to release Gilbert’s cock from his lips and shove one hand in its place, gripping firmly with his fingers as he squeezed his other hand between Gilbert’s buttocks, shoving, grasping for just the right spot—

Gilbert screamed onto Vincent’s mouth in the middle of their kiss as Vincent’s agile fingers worked their way into Gilbert’s entrance – feeling even more tighter because of their standing positions – and as the funnel of water continued to release its rush of warmth, Vincent felt another spasm from his brother as a different sort of release encompassed him.


	66. Chapter 66

Lacie/Levi, roleplay

***

The first time Lacie was returned to the manor, Levi asked what she did out there and, with a defiant glint in her eye, Lacie declared that she conducted her own “experiment” with a minor viscount from a bordering nation, and added promptly that she had a right to conduct her own investigations according to her own preferences before letting Levi direct his upon her own body; in response, Levi laughed and laughed and laughed, delighted that the mother of his future children acted with such spunk.

“But you are only a youngster yourself still,” he berated, somewhat seriously, feeling the need to instill discipline upon the child of misfortune lest her minor indiscretions turn into actual rebellion; with that, he ordered her to remove her clothes before him and keeping in this serious mien, demanded that the girl reenact every single thing she did to that nobleman to Levi, for the sake of verifying her hypothesis (“And you have permission to call me by his name and act exactly as you did with him,” he added, “since a successful experiment must be able to be duplicated under the same conditions.”)

Levi was surprised by the girl’s willingness (and her flexibility and her endurance) as she gyrated her tiny body on top of him, hair flying and innocent mouth agape in the throes of pleasure and she said, “And he touched me __there__ , and he parted me like __this__ , and he felt so hard like, like, like …” and even had the focus to correct him snidely, “You’re not… sticking… to… my procedure…” as Leviflipped her over and mounted her from behind (yes, how proud he was of this young girl he so eagerly fucked; only she was worthy of carrying out his plan to the very end).


	67. Chapter 67

Elliot/fem!Leo *first time

***

He knew there would be blood, and in part feared that the most more than anything else; he imagined with anxious horror of Leona crying beneath him saying that _it hurt, it hurt, please stop_ and withdrawing to see his length coated in a sheen of crimson, as if he had stabbed her with a blade instead of his cock; the worry about injuring Leona made him self-conscious about his actions and made him slow and hesitant when it came to the time that both of them were in bed; Elliot pulled away from her dripping core, face reddening, stuttering (“A-are you sure you’ll be okay? I.. I mean, we don’t have to…”) but the disappointment in her eyes motivated Elliot to tighten his shut and plunge in, tentatively.

Yes, there a virgin tightness that inserting his fingers had only partly relieved, and Elliot could sense Leona straining, groaning, whimpering as he slowly inserted himself in further; halfway through Elliot stopped entirely and cautiously opened one eye; Leona was crying and Elliot felt ashamed; he was breaking her, he only wanted her to feel loved and whole-

“Elliot,” she sniffed and then, tenderly, reached up to kiss Elliot’s eyelids, “We can do this. We can…” and together, their bodies moved and pushed and became united and though there were tears, Elliot found himself crying more as they started to move together, whispering, “I love you, I love you, I love you so much…”   


	68. Chapter 68

Glen (Levi)/Oswald, consensual master/servant punishment kink.

***

Oswald was a closed book: observant, keen, and so very careful to think before speaking, as if words were limited stock and he was highly aware of the dwindling amount he had in store; his master enjoyed so much to crack the bindings of his heir’s hidden self, to expose those raw pages and scan down the passages inside this boy’s mind.

How fitting then, to bend Oswald across the desk in his private study, to analyze every inch of his exposed flesh, trousers pooling at his ankles, hands tied behind his back, that dark head and deep violet eyes flashing his latent desire and need as Levi slowly approached, slapping the paddle into his calloused palm; his question (“You let her escape last time,” Levi clucked playfully, referring to Lacie, “and my dear boy, she already suffered her punishment; what do you have to say for yourself?”) remained unanswered and Revis found it delightful how much Oswald was inwardly searching for the right answer, even though Revis found a perfectly acceptable one rising between the young man’s legs.

“Now, now, now,” Levi leaned against the desk and rubbed the smooth wood against Oswald’s arse, enjoying how the man shuddered bodily in anticipation, “you have to learn how to vocalize your thoughts more promptly, Oswald. For every strike I give you, I want to hear your reason for letting Lacie go. Understand?” (oh, that hasty nod of his head and that glimpse of Oswald’s bobbing cock, already at attention even before the first strike); and when Levi whacked Oswald across the buttocks, he screamed out, “Because she wanted to!” but Levi wasn’t satisfied with that answer, so he kept going (“Because she…I wanted…”) and going (“…this… I wanted you…”) and going (“…to punish me …”) and going (“…like you did… last time…she left…oh…”) and going (“…yes…yes…”) until he was satisfied that the proper discipline had been dispensed (Oswald did not become more prompt with his responses, in the end, but at least he’s learning how to live up to the Duke’s expectations). 


	69. Chapter 69

OzGil. *Withheld release. *

***

A sheen of perspiration coated Gil’s forehead and he glanced up bearily at his master; for all of his daily subservience, Gilbert felt compelled to remind Oz that he did not _always_ want to be ordered about, particularly in bed, and particularly in this manner, with this-this—a line of sweat dropped down the side of Gil’s face as he stared down at the male chastity belt over his privates: the triangle of leather covering his front and his cock, red and bulging, restrained upward with soft fine strips of kidskin and a tiny golden lock holding it all in place (where did Oz even _get_ these things?)

“W-what am I, some sort of __kept bride__?” he had spluttered at first, as Oz had buckled him in before the start of their romp, and now that he was hard and had waves of near-orgasm sweep over him for the past __hour,__ Gil opened his mouth to protest once again for Oz for gods’ sakes to undo this contraption, and oh, it was starting to ache terribly and wait, what are you doing with the key there, don’t you dare drop it in the fireplace grate, don’t you dare—

Only when Gil had bodily tackled Oz to the ground in front of the fireplace, getting soot over their sweaty, naked flesh, and biting down harder than he had meant to on Oz’s ear, making the boy moan and throw his arms around Gil’s neck like a maid on her honeymoon, did Gil finally wretch the key from Oz’s grasp; once in his hand, however, the look of devious authority on Oz’s face made Gil hesitate and he bent down on trembling knees to proffer up the key in his shaking palm: “Please, Master? Please?” he whispered, this being one of the rare occasions Oz let Gil call him that.


	70. Chapter 70

Oz/Gilbert, feathers

***

The Raven’s feathers, make of that ephemeral substance that most Chains were made of, usually vanished after a few hours after the supernatural beast left the real world, and Gilbert made a habit of collecting them to keep them in a small pile on his wardrobe that would eventually fade into wisps of black smoke; this time, however, he held a pinion tip in his fingers, drew a slow line down Oz’s belly and tickled along his thighs; the blond boy convulsed, instantaneously, his lips parted in a lovely little O shape as his emerald eyes lit up in pleasure.

Always, the Chain’s feathers were unlike normal ones, containing bits of cold that chilled Gil’s fingers, and somehow, more than the normal fluffy goose down they used, it was these ink-dipped remnants from the Abyss that provoked the best reactions from his master; limp and willing, Oz breathed in sudden stops and starts as Gil progressed, slowly, tenderly: down the smooth, soft expanse of skin, circling around the knee joint and the calf, then, with his other hand, another feather brushing around the curve of Oz’s spine, up the nape of his neck, sweeping against the gently curved jawline…

Oz’s member Gil touched last, stroking both feathers simultaneously along either side of his cock and getting their tips dabbed with musky wetness from the head of Oz’s shaft; the tension then broke and suddenly, Gil knew that his will was lost as the boy leaped from the bed, all arms and legs and tongue and heat, and the feathers vanished in a burst of shattered mist between their raw, desiring bodies.


	71. Chapter 71

Elliot/Leo, in that order, bondage

***

The first thing that Leo noticed waking up that morning was the cool air upon his skin; the next was that someone had taken advantage of his preference for sleeping on his stomach to chain him face down against the mattress, and not only was his limbs restrained, but Leo felt something (a bar, a stick, the holster of a sword?) pressed length-wise and tied across the back of his thighs, leaving his legs spread and his arse presented, exposed and waiting.

After the haze of wakefulness passed and full awareness of his position dawned on Leo, a moment of pure panic settled in: because who would do this to him, certainly not Elliot, because he was as vanilla as they came (even the __mention__ of ribbons sent him crawling up a wall in protest), and so who dared to sneak into Leo’s rooms at Lutwidge and bind him up like this (oh gods, it was just like in that novel Leo finished last week, where the villain kidnapped young maids and tied them up in this fashion before deflowering them), and oh jeez, what was going to happen, and where was Elliot-

“Elliot?” Leo thrashed, screaming into his pillow, “Elliot, Elliot-“ and when the weight of another body pressed against him from behind, Leo’s frantic moves increased tenfold as the panic bloomed in his chest (“Damn you, damn you, damn-“), until the soft whisper graced his ear of the young Nightray’s voice, whose words transformed Leo’s anxiety into sudden lust: “Hey, Leo, I’ve been looking into your books lately and wanted to present a little surprise…”


	72. Chapter 72

Jack/Oswald, dub-con

***

Little Gil was laying there, bleeding out, and Oswald prayed the boy was knocked out cold and not watching this; he wanted to keep his young servant’s innocence as much as possible, despite all of the violence tumbling around them, and so Oswald murmured to himself, “Please don’t wake, Gil, please don’t wake, please don’t-“ as Jack pinned him against the curtains, hands gripping the Baskerville heir between the legs and mouth hungrily sucking at the man’s neck despite Jack’s own falling tears.

Oz of B-Rabbit lurked behind Jack, head hunched down, clawed paws scraping the stone floor and preventing Oswald from summoning forth any of his Chains; “One last time,” Jack was begging through his greedy touches as he pressed his aching member against Oswald’s leg, “if you won’t help me get her back, one last time, Oswald, for us,” and Oswald couldn’t help but give a drawn-out groan in response, in memory of all of those nights they lain together, before this betrayal, and for a moment he wished so deeply that he could grant Jack’s desire to resurrect his dead sister, but also knew that his lover’s wish was impossible.

Oswald should be fighting him, stopping him from creating a catastrophe and not giving into these touches; he knew better; he had dedicated his entire life to protecting the world from a disaster like this and rebelled as much as he could as Jack pulled them both down to the floor (and yet he let Jack undo him in the end, in a move that would ultimately leave him in pieces for over a hundred years). 


	73. Chapter 73

Vincent/Gilbert follow up to [Anointment](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1010830). Kink: Guro

***

Blood pooled from the vagrant’s corpse, soaking at the edges of Gilbert’s coat as he lay on the gritty floor of the abandoned squat and continued those amazing little sounds as Vincent removed his older brother’s boots, trousers and underthings, tossing them aside heedlessly in his single-minded wanting and undid the front of his own clothes.

Dabbling his bare fingers in the quickly cooling trickles of red, Vincent rubbed the dead man’s blood between his fingers, and, thinking a wicked thought, pressed his two digits straight into Gil’s waiting arse; Gilbert’s head lifted off the dirty floor immediately with a little cry; probably thinking on some level about decorum or fear of disease (or, perhaps, his arousal was heightened by this level of risk), his eyes flashed into a deeper gold as he demanded, “Whose, whose?”

But Vincent didn’t answer, shoving his fingers in further to reach that special place that turned Gilbert into such a willing, naughty __beast__ , bucking and screaming, reaching down to shove Vincent’s contaminated hand into him all the more, eyes rolling back at the pure loss of rational thought as Vincent worked his hand into his brother again and again while coating himself with more bits of the criminal’s crimson remains; “ _ _this is his body, this is his blood__ ,” came the thought before Vincent locked their wretched, beautiful selves into one.


	74. Chapter 74

Leo/Lotti

***

Leo was not supposed to contract Jabberwock alone; there was a reason why this was the final Chain to be transferred into Glen, for it took the power of all the remaining Chains within the Baskerville vessel in order to tame this beast, and alone, Leo’s personality—no, his very soul—would become warped, changed, maligned, vulnerable to the ferocious rage and unspeakable passions of a creature from the darkest realms of the Abyss….

Lotti, corset ripped open with a sweep of Jabberwock’s claw, stumbled backwards and fell upon the lush green grass of the Nightray back lawn; Leon leaped to her defense, kneeling down into a growl, but Lotti stayed its feline head (“Don’t worry, Leon, don’t-“); Leo approached, all confidence and predatory swagger as Leon raced past him to tackle the Jabberwock, only to be caught in the Jabberwock’s grip; her Chain struggled as the beast sniffed at his mane and a talon etched down the Chain’s sleek belly, drawing blood.

Simultaneously, Lotti, panting from exhilaration from the fight, found the Baskerville’s heir kneeling over her to part her willing legs and slip his fingers inside the lining of her panties; those eyes, so magnificent in their fervor and their hunger, bore into hers and she gasped as the boy began to dip those thin fingertips into her wetness (“Battles get you going, don’t they, Lotti,” came the purring compliment); and as he started pawing and sucking at her breasts with feral little grunts, all she could do was stare upwards at the sky at the Jabberwock toying with her precious Leon and think, “I’ll give you everything, Master, everything, everything….”


	75. Chapter 75

Vincent/Ada

***

The one thing that discomforted Vincent the most about this impossible woman was not the fact that she was a purveyor of the occult (which evoked the most traumatic memories from his childhood) or how her silhouette from behind, with her hair undone and lying in gentle waves down her back, reminded Vincent vaguely of Miranda Barma (which provoked a mix of self-hatred and vengeful domination as he rammed into Ada’s moaning body)–no, the one thing that always took Vincent unawares was how Ada’s inner darkness and that sunny gentleness never seemed to touch, even as she purred foreign love chants into his ear when she rode him.

And, somehow, the longer that they engaged in these tangled intimate relations, there were moments where Vince found the young Vessalius girl almost – but not quite – endearing.

For instance, this moment in bed, post-coitus: “Pretty please?” Ada murmured, tucking her blond head into the crook of Vincent’s shoulder, and Vincent, reluctantly, murmured, “Of course,” and reached down to rub the soft curve of her rear; Ada gave a contented mew, much like one of her kittens, and it took a long while as Vincent gently stroked her bottom in the dark before he realized that she had fallen asleep, and even once he did realize, he felt compelled to continue to rub her (though he couldn’t…exactly… explain to himself why) until his own eyes drifted and closed.


	76. Chapter 76

seme Gil and Uke Vince~

***

 _The Dormouse must be behind this_ , Vincent thought, eyes-wide, his heart throbbing in his ears in time with his stiffening member, _that greedy floating rodent_ —and he opened he mouth to say, “Wake me up,” but as soon as his lips parted, Gilbert’s mouth moved to capture them, sucking on his lower lip deliciously and slowly, as his older brother moved to pin Vince down onto the chaise-lounge (was this Gil’s idea of a “good talk?”).

Vincent almost broke out laughing in the middle of their kiss as another denying thought flashed through his mind: his brother was finally learning how to be _clever_ , for once; that he wanted Vince to confess to their lost memories; that his hands unhooking Vince’s coat and running along his silk long shirt were nothing but manipulative little gestures and – oh, big brother, don’t make me do this, don’t make me give in like a simple _woman_.

Even if that was the ulterior motive lying behind the way Gilbert started kissing and biting down his neck as he clambered on top of Vincent, and behind the way he kept rationalizing in throaty tones: “If we can’t remember anything else, maybe we aren’t related after all, maybe we can do this… like other people do…” (how disalarmingly foolish of his dear brother, as if their blood bond wasn’t the _core_ of Vincent’s attraction to him), Vincent began to give in to Gilbert’s touch, anyway, though he couldn’t help but teasingly whisper, “Only you, brother, can make me forget everything…”


	77. Chapter 77

Elliot/Leo boot fetish

***

There was something to be said, thought Leo, of Elliot’s desire for equality in their relationship; Leo never once had to dress his master (though he had undressed him dozens of times) or carry out his orders (unless said in _that_ growling tone of his) or even trail after him at social events at the respectable five steps behind (they often lounged, somewhat bored, side by side along the wall and Elliot never made a effort to sign a girl’s dance card, though Leo often reminded him that he should, before rumors started about the truth of their relationship).

One chore, however, Leo never minded doing at all: he smiled as he scrapped the bristled brush against the edge of Elliot’s heeled boot, flicking away the mud from field practice, before taking a warm wet cloth and carefully rubbing the grime off and applying the boot polish in even, circular strokes along the entire stretch of leather that covered his master’s feet and up along his muscled calves.

Elliot, shirtless, watched through half-lidded azure eyes while his legs, clad in tight riding breeches, dangled off the edge of the divan as Leo knelt on the carpet before him and oh so carefully traced his fingers along the tooled surface, indulging in the scents of leather, polish, sweat, and that musky smell of his own arousal. 


	78. Chapter 78

Break/Shelly : servicing.

***

It started off as a tease (because, the Mistress could be _such_ a tease), since Break had been trained as a knight in his old life and not a valet, Lady Shelly would mockingly instruct the white-haired man about all the simple things a servant was expected to know: “No, Xerxes darling, this is how you pour tea,” “No, dearest, this is how you lay out the dessert spread,” “No, my pretty man, you must bow lower – _lower_ – like—this –“ (and here was when, with a sweep of her skirts, the noblewoman bared too much cleavage to be proper for any maid to display).

Break was quite a fast learner due to his Mistress’ attentive instructions.

And soon, it was Break who offered, “And is this, sweet madam, how you lay out a table?” (spreading her knees as she lay across the polished cherry wood); “But, my Mistress, please let me straighten out those petticoats, “ (which only ended up with their removal); “Of course, dear Lady, let me assist you,” (as Break covered her pert mouth with one hand to hold in her moans as he fondled her down below with the other – for just what __would__ the servants think if they were to overhear?)  


	79. Chapter 79

elliot/fem!leo, bloody and sadistic

(In my headcanon, I actually have Elliot grow up with a slightly misogynistic attitude that he picked up from his father and older brothers that he eventually shed once he got to school; however, part of his attraction to being in a relationship with another man was a twisted belief that somehow, he wouldn’t be able to treat a woman to be his equal in the same way….But yeah, this is darker than usual)

***

Elliot never thought he’d use this reason—not since he saw her huddled in the corner of the House of Fiona’s library, her tousled black locks covering her face, and a sudden urge overcame the young Nightray to yank back those midnight locks to see the rest of her gorgeous face, even as he extended his hand to promise fairness and friendship between them: “You’re my servant,” he told her now, “Why are you making such a big deal out of this?”

His valet’s long-lashed eyes, so marvelous and entrancing, flicked fiery sparks of deep hazel and chiseled silver against a backdrop of deep, deep violet, which contracted so sharply with the dribble of crimson leaking from one nostril and the swollen puff of her lips, slowly turning shades of cloudy grey from where he had slammed the side of her face against the banister.

 _ _Liar__ , her eyes accused _ _, liar, liar, liar__ , and a twinge of regret and injured pride stabbed through Elliot’s chest; __how dare she__ , he thought and growled: “Stop looking at me like that,” as his anger and lust rose to a boiling point; he gripped the disheveled remains of her torn shirt and pressed her exposed breasts against him, “I said stop-!” he repeated once more before he pressed his firm hot lips against her bruised ones, shutting his eyes close to enjoy the sensation as she squirmed in his grasp. 


	80. Chapter 80

Leo/fem!Elliot

***

Elly didn’t know, exactly, what drew her to this snide, shaggy-haired orphan boy – perhaps she wanted to do what Vanessa did with Hans, and have another man to boss around for once, or maybe it was the way that Leo was so dismissive of her–not because he couldn’t be bothered with the insignificant second Nightray daughter (too young to be married off, but too old to dawdle with her big brothers anymore), but because Leo seemed to hate people _in general_.

Elly found that behavior strangely reassuring and so chose him to be her valet; she should’ve thought it over more, though, she should’ve considered how village boys were ill-behaved and she had to be always on guard to protect herself, just in case…

A part of her wanted to trust Leo so very badly; she couldn’t help but tremble, however, as he leaned over her, book closed in his palm to cup her cheek in his free hand; __What if Father was right and all village boys wanted to do to noblewomen was…__ Elly cut off the thought with a determined nod of her head and, smiling gently, Leo kissed her before reaching down to start unbuttoning her blouse.


	81. Chapter 81

GilxFem!Vince

***

The night that Gilbert caught his younger sister undone in the arms of a foreign marquis twice her age in the shadows of the topiary maze at the Royal Ambassador’s Ball, instant rage eclipsed his vision as he punched the elder gentleman across the nose and dragged his sister away: there was a fraternal protectiveness coating a darker, deeper jealousy he couldn’t understand even as he called for the Nightray carriage and shoved her inside, barking orders for the coachmen to depart posthaste.

“He wasn’t taking advantage of anything, big brother,” his sister murmured, twirling a golden curl of hair around one finger, heedless of the messy tangle of her locks; her clothing she had rearranged to keep the illusion of decency, but Gilbert remembered seeing the lack of crinoline, undershift, petticoats, and bloomers, and how much of her pale, glowing flesh was exposed through the torn stockings beneath that rich fabric of her ballgown; she began coyly, “I only want Gil to be happy. You know, everything I do is for-“

“Enough!” Gilbert snapped before she could pull out that excuse like a worn handkerchief, and he reached across the carriage to grab her wrist (he __failed__ her, he always failed his little sister, and now she was going to bring ruin upon herself if he didn’t teach her properly how to act in society…); “Y-you want to make me happy?” Gilbert continued – the carriage jostled as if provoked by his words and she tumbled, all softness and curves and bounce in all the right places, forward into his lap – and Gilbert seized her bare shoulders (the top half of her dress, only half buttoned in the back, began to slip down even further), as their faces confronted each other mere inches apart (and he could feel the shape of her legs and her thighs and he shuddered):

“Then don’t give yourself to those lecherous men, you understand, please don’t, because it isn’t the right thing for a lady like you, it-it is dangerous, and-and…” and the carriage hit another bump in the road and suddenly his lips were upon hers, and the neckline of her dress descended, and all he could feel was how warm and lovely she was in his arms but he had to __teach__ her, he had to show her how…to… behave… he had to be a __good brother__ … good… oh good.. oh, she tasted so very, very __good__ ….


	82. Chapter 82

Elliot/Sharon. S&M

(By S & M I’m playing the “Servant / Master” card as opposed to “Sadist / Masochist” this time)

***

Sharon knew how young she looked and was quite self-conscious about it much of the time, but her inner anxiety was masked behind domineering moments: her violent tendencies with her paper fan (as Xerxes could attest to), or her demands that others kiss her feet when inebriated (as Gilbert was pressed to mention once, turning bright red when he did); never in her right mind would she expose herself to be otherwise, for fear that would just prove everyone’s assumptions _right_.

So then why was she kneeling naked before this young Nightray heir as he fastened the collar around her neck, as he stroked the nape of her neck with one gloved hand and ordered – yes, _ordered_ – her to come sit in his lap to let him pet all along her body as if she was some meek and willing little animal?

 _Because it’s fine with him_ , Sharon thought, _That’s what love is – to trust someone so much to show them a side you’d never reveal to anyone else_ ; and she shut her eyes, nodded obediently, and gave cute little mews as Elliot began fondling her and nibbling along the curve of one ear as he growled: “You’re mine, got it? Only I can touch you. Only I can use you…” 


	83. Chapter 83

Fem!GilxVince

***

“Big sister should enjoy herself,” Vincent soothed, dragging his fingertips along the inside of her spread thighs, letting the soft pad of his thumb reach into the folds of her womanhood and press firmly against the slick nub of her clit; a muffled moan faintly escaped from the tousled sheets as Vincent’s older sibling involuntarily arched her back from the bedspread, helpless against the ties that bound her wrists to her ankles, leaving her spread wide and ready for him.

Her rich musky scent filled his nostrils as Vincent watched her breasts bounce while her whole body started to quiver uncontrollably in orgasm (how softly came her wordless cries that vibrated through her very core as she writhed, helpless and gagged in his bed); he leaned over and grabbed at her stiffened tit with his lips, biting and sucking as she flexed, her teeth biting through the cloth gag, her eyes shining bright as she stared at his length ( _I must be larger than that Vessalius brat,_ Vincent thought, proudly).

“You can’t wait for me, now can you?” Vincent murmured, kissing her tenderly on her covered mouth before positioning himself at her still trembling opening (and her gaze was begging, simply begging, _please please please_ ) and so he pulled the gag away to hear her lovely raw voice as he entered her, inch by inch, feeling the tightness of her walls enfolding him in a grip of wonderful heat: “Vince, Vince, oh gods, I can’t, I can’t, t-too much, too much, please, oh, oh, oh…”


	84. Chapter 84

lacie/jack, domination and shameful strip

***

For anyone else, Jack would’ve felt nothing; his hands wouldn’t be trembling as he undid each pearl button of his waistcoat and let it drop to the floor before moving to undo his neatly folded cravat and the silken ties of his chemise; and yet– “Slower,” came her command, “and look at me.”

Yes, Lacie wanted his emerald gaze on her and only her, and he could not help but glance backwards, blushing, as he bent over so she could see the flexing of his firm buttocks as he undid his spats and slipped off his polished boots and (“I said, _slower_ ,” came the delicate hiss, along with a punishing slap across his backside) then, (every moment passing in agony) Jack undid the lacing of his breeches and peeled off the satin cloth from his legs, kicking them away quickly as he, in horror, felt the tent of his arousal peek through his drawers.

Lacie’s touch crept around his waist, rotating him to face her (“Put your hands behind your head,” she purred, rubbing the firm muscles of his bare chest before hooking her fingers along the band of his underthings) and Jack realized, obeying as his flush grew hotter, what was so terrifying about this whole experience: he dreaded that Lacie, deep down inside, wasn’t the beatific and terrible glory he had waited for so long to see, but was no different from those ordinary, cruel men he serviced in his past, no different at all. 


	85. Chapter 85

Jack/fem-Vincent

(Are you implying pedo!Jack-?? :o Cuz that’s what I first thought, since the only time Jack knew Vince….Props if you get the subverted literary reference below.

Trigger warning: Child abuse) 

***

Jack loved her eye most of all, but she didn’t like to watch him when they did this; she’d bury her head in the pillow that she laid on and squeezed both shut tightly, displaying delicate lashes so wonderfully long, but whenever she did that, Jack would cup her smooth chin in his much larger hand and whisper, half-eager, half-pleading, “Can you look at me with your pretty eye, my sweetheart, please, please, please?”

With a whimper, she’d lift open up that wonderful eye – the reddest eye – (the eye the little girl wished she grew up to never have, for all the terrible things it brought upon her), but she would only focus on Jack’s face looming above her and how those emerald eyes filled with adult emotions and not pay attention to anything else: not where his hands went, not that strange, alien sensation over her young body, not the nagging thought that what they did was wrong, wrong, __wrong__.

Years later, when that little girl was all grown up, she’d imagine the eyes of the Vessalius family – so green – and feel a wretched twist inside her soul that would provoke her to rip out all the jeweled orbs from her stuffed rabbits first before shredding everything else. 


	86. Chapter 86

Gil/Vince, with something like Gil testing to see how much power he can wield over his brother, i.e. making Vince beg for it? 

***

Vincent didn’t like the thought of his brother wandering the streets, ducking into low-class taverns, spending his meager earnings from Pandora in a lugubrious wave of intoxicated sorrow, which was why both of them sat between the cups in Gilbert’s rooms with three bottles between them; every so often, Vincent would take Gil’s glass and pour out half the contents into the ash canister by the fireplace when he wasn’t looking; his older brother commented after the first hour how he must be gaining a tolerance, for he didn’t even feel anything yet (though Vincent was convinced otherwise, given the slurring); but as Gilbert topped off his cup from the third bottle, he commented, “Vinnie, you haven’t touched your glass all evening.”

Vincent lied that he had enough for tonight (though he hadn’t had a drop at all) and watched, concerned, as Gilbert rose from his seat, glass in hand, and declared he wasn’t certainly going to be the only one enjoying himself, and before Vincent knew it, his brother was standing behind his chair and cupping his chin as he tilted his glass into Vincent’s mouth and, obediently, Vincent swallowed, feeling a fevered blush creep up his cheeks from the drink and from the thought of his brother being determined to use him, even in this silly manner; things became decidedly more serious, though, as Gilbert made him finish up the rest of the bottle, whispering in his alcohol-soaked breath that he’d promise Vincent a reward once he was done….

And before Vincent knew it, he was sitting on the carpet in front of the fireplace, slumped forward, fighting waves of dizziness as he heard the clinking of Gilbert’s belt being undone and dropping to the floor; the smooth coolness of the wine bottle stroked his exposed backside as his older brother asked, “Tell me, Vince, how much you want this….” (Want what? Gilbert? More drink? For that terrifyingly insecure feeling of intoxication to stop?) and Vincent gave a grievous moan, and the room shifted in his vision as he said, “I want it, brother, I do, I do…”

 


	87. Chapter 87

GilbertxVincent. Gil is the seme. Rape.

(Part two to the [previous Gil/Vince drabble](http://tiniestdormouse.tumblr.com/post/21736334783/if-youre-still-taking-fic-drabble-requests). This does not get any prettier… Trigger warning applies.)

***

“How much do you want it?” came the demand and Vincent, his stomach dropping upon hearing Gil’s voice, grappling his curved fingers against the carpet as he felt the tip of the empty wine bottle rub against his arse, the wine dregs splashing out over his bare skin; “What are you doing-?” Vincent demanded, letting fear cut though his inebriation as Gilbert slurred, “You’ll love this,” before shoving the neck of the wine bottle harshly, his clumsy grip angling into Vince in completely the wrong way-

Vince screamed as the bottle rammed into him, its widening neck expanding him uncomfortably the deeper it went; the remains of drink at the base of the bottle stung the tear inside him and Vincent started shuffling backwards, begging Gilbert to take it out, take it out-

“Later,” Gilbert mumbled and Vincent saw his brother standing before him, exposed and at attention, but Vincent was not aroused at all, because gods, this _hurt_ and he said, eyes watering, “Brother, listen-” but Gilbert was too drunk to pay proper attention and a lazy smile crossed his face as he stroked the side of Vincent’s face: “I love you too, Vin,” before he shoved his member into Vincent’s mouth; Vin gagged, taking it all, letting the tears drop in shock and pain (Gil loved him, Gil hurt him—this was all Vincent deserved.)


	88. Chapter 88

Requesting a drabble of Gil spoiling his little brother. Or of anyone else spoiling him, if you are Nightraycested out, as it were.

***

Little Vincent was afraid of a lot of things: of strangers, of the dark, of insects and rats (especially alley rats….), and when Gilbert and him were brought into the Vessalius household under Jack’s wing, a whole new set of difficulties confronted him: he got scared of his reflection, with his hair cut so short by his new caretaker, of the fancy foods he couldn’t identify on his plate, of the lack of expectations for him or his brother to entertain the nobles, and, most of all, of the notion that someday, all of these wonderful things would be taken away….

“Vinnie, you feeling all right?” Gilbert perched his chin on Vincent’s shoulder and poked him in the arm playfully; Vincent, suddenly overwhelmed with a chest-tightening anxiety caused by his fears, only curled into a little ball in the playroom, clutching his stuffed rabbit; his older brother could be so happy at times and he wished he could be as carefree as him.

“N-nothing. I’m only tired….” he murmured shyly but Gilbert only threw his arms around him with a soft laugh.

“Well, I told the cook how you weren’t eating very well lately, so he asked if I could think of anything that you’d like,” and with that, he dragged his little brother by the hand to the parlor room where the table was decked out with every imagined dessert possible: cookies with whipped topping, little cakes and tarts dotted with sugared fruit, crème burlee shiny with its honeyed sheen, ready for cracking, and a big steaming pot of hot chocolate; Vincent didn’t know what to say as Gilbert plunked him in his chair and sided up next to him.

“Remember seeing these in the bakery windows all the time?” he said offering Vincent a shortbread cookie filled with jam, “Well, now that we live here, I want to learn how to make all of these for you someday. Would you like that?”

Vincent bit into the cookie, letting the tangy taste of the strawberry jam dance on his tongue. “Yes, I’d like that very much,” he murmured.

 


	89. Chapter 89

Oswald/Jack/ Lacie

***

Lacie took the initiative (she always does, those sly minx eyes running down his body and those supple hands undoing his clothes), and yet it was Oswald who whispered, solemnly, with a hint of tension and need behind that smooth voice, “Take it,” and Jack obeyed (enraptured, staring with those pools of green into Oswald’s violet ones), tasting the velvet firmness and that pure, raw heat. Jack didn’t know exactly what compelled him (lies, lies, it was the woman behind him, fondling him with her touch and prepping her dainty fingers into him from behind); he had done this with couples before, but this moment, this moment all of them felt connected, together, whole, _complete_ –

A soft moan escaped Jack’s occupied mouth as he felt Oswald tug his hair, and Lacie, humming in tune with Jack’s inner crescendo of pleasure as she stretched him with her hand, splayed her free hand across his bare back and said to him and to her brother: “Even after I’m gone, you’ll still have each other. Remember this, Jack. Remember, Oswald. Whenever you two are together, think of me too. Think of me.”


	90. Chapter 90

Leo/fem!Elliot, mutual masturbation

***

“Can I watch?” was how it all started (damn Leo, that perv), and, even though they had gone so much farther than this, Elly fostered a sense of acute embarrassment and maidenly shame as she reached down to touch herself while Leo settled between her legs, glasses slipping down his nose, his delicious mouth framed into a soft half-smile in his anticipation.

“You look like an idiot,” she couldn’t help snap, between panting breaths as she worked her fingers over that glistening nub, “The least you can do is help-” and suddenly her manservant sprung, grabbing her by the ankles and pulling her toward him with a fiery hunger in his eyes; she gasped, straightening up as he arranged her bare bottom on his lap and took control, dipping his fingers into the soft folds of her hidden self.

Elly threw her head back and gave a soft hiss and, in unspoken agreement, she reached down to undo his fly and slip her hand inside to stroke him firmly; they were still equals after all, and it was – “Yes, Leo, faster, faster” - the least - “oh gods, right there,” - she could do - “Leo, Leo, _Leo_ -”


	91. Chapter 91

Oswald/Miranda, animalistic

***

Miranda wanted to own him, but Oswald wouldn’t let her. Whenever she moved to top him, he’d flip her over; every claw of her nails down his back or his thighs was retaliated with a yank of her hair or twist of her wrist; she hissed, he growled; their bodies moved not in sync, but in merciless opposition, forever circling, tempting, domineering, until the very end when Oswald mounted her from behind and, flashing her long, pale neck in submission, she let out a high-pitched howl, gripping that mane of midnight against her shoulder in the thoes of her release as he gnawed and bit and marked the exposed skin.

Afterward, to herself, flushed and exhausted, as she wrapped her arms around Oswald’s neck while he slumbered, Miranda made a vow: this gorgeous man will be her prize, her trophy, her masterpiece; she will lock up this lovely head in her nightstand one day, and whenever she desired, she would take out this wonderful gift from the gods and hold him to her in exactly the way she craved, because then Oswald will be hers, all hers.


	92. Chapter 92

Levi/Oswald

***

Levi was the sort of person who planned for long-term goals. The previous Glen Baskerville (a wise and boisterous woman named Leah) advised him wisely in this manner, usually while she braided his hair after they had bedded, whispering coyly in his adolescent ear: “Only you understand me, my boy. Remember this. Your heir will be the one destined to bond with you, and that way, you will never be alone.” (That piece of advice cleaved to him through the years, even after Leah had rotted away and became nothing more than a ghost in his ear–he cherished her as much now as he did then).

So when he first paid attention to Oswald in that very specific way that attention had been paid to him, he expected things to be simple. He was scientific and analytical and cool under pressure, and so he raised Oswald to be the same. He thought Oswald would start picking up the hints, and no words needed to be said otherwise.

But Oswald remained oddly quiet and spacey, staring out the window, or distracted by a question that Levi had already assumed Oswald knew the answer to. Half the time spent together at lessons about his duties, Levi wasted reminding Oswald to _pay attention_ to what he was saying for once (or to the board, or to the page they read).

Frankly, however, Levi wanted Oswald to pay more attention to the way Levi touched his shoulder or brushed his cheek while they were alone, or placed a warm arm across his shoulders and planted a (not-so) fatherly kiss on his lips now and then. Oswald didn’t dismiss his touches, but, in fact, he seemed not to find them significant, which was a hundred times worse. Levi certainly didn’t act that way when his foster mother started presenting herself to him when he was fifteen….

“Oswald,” he purred, perching on the table where Oswald was in the midst of jotting down constellation coordinates (one of the ways they predicted disturbances in the Abyss was through the stars).

“Oh?” The boy lifted his head, slightly cross-eyed from focusing so hard on the parchment before them.

“Have you noticed anything about us lately?” Levi plucked the quill from his hand and tossed it on the table.

Oswald blinked, slowly. An expression of confusion came over his face. “We’ve been working quite… adamantly lately,” he noted.

“Indeed. There has been shifts in the Abyss more often.” And shifts in other places too, Levi hoped, inching his lower hand along Oswald’s thigh.

The teenager boy shuffled uncomfortably. “Glen-”

“Hmmm?” With his other hand, Levi raised the boy’s chin.

“Are you bored?”

“B-bored?” Levi laughed, letting go with one hand and clutching tighter with the other. “Why would you think I’m _that_?”

“Because I notice you get quite physical when you don’t have enough mental stimulus.” Oswald cocked his head to the side. “Do you want to finish these calculations?”

What an astute observation. Not as spacey as Levi had thought! And the Baskerville leader couldn’t stop his mirth, not even when he slid into Oswald’s lap in one smooth motion and wrapped his arms around the youth’s neck. “My dear boy, you read my gestures quite well, actually. I need to be entertained. Time to start a new duty of yours.” As he pulled Oswald in closer for a kiss, he added slyly, “Let me show you how I entertained the last Glen….”


	93. Chapter 93

Oswald/Levi TMI

***

The first time Oswald took the initiative with Levi it was a time that Lacie had been gone for a week straight during one of her runaways from the estate. Oswald and Levi had been riding all night to reach a neighboring town where someone had spotted her.

Oswald usually didn’t feel compelled to be physical with anyone, but he could see that the days of worry and hard travel had put a strain upon the Baskerville leader. In the half-light under the eaves of a ramshackle inn they had stumbled upon to rest for the night, Oswald noticed for the first time the lines at the corners of Levi’s eyes. Crow’s feet.

It was the first sign of Levi actually becoming old, and since Levi hadn’t aged since becoming Glen, Oswald knew it wasn’t really a sign of aging at all. It was a sign of something much worse.

Levi noticed Oswald noticing and gave a dry laugh. “Your sister will be the death of both of us, before the end,” he said, slyly, but there was a particular bitter note to his tone that only Oswald—who could be very good at reading signs, once he paid enough attention— could hear.

He reached up and pressed his lips to the corner of those eyes, upon those signal-posts of the dying. He didn’t feel attracted to Levi at all, but felt that gesture was something Lacie would’ve done to make him happy, and frankly, he wanted to make Levi feel happy.

“What? Are you going to go about kissing every wrinkle and age spot I get from now on?”

Oswald shrugged, hesitant and partly-noncommittal. “Maybe if I thought you needed it.”

And years later, after Lacie was gone and Levi was nearly there himself, Oswald kept his promise one evening between the two of them in the former leader’s bedchambers. He even made Levi laugh once or twice because of the places Levi made the young heir touch, but Oswald won’t speak about those (for many complicated reasons).


	94. Chapter 94

Something OT3-ish for Vincent/Ada/Gil, please!

***

Vincent would have very much preferred to be alone; sitting at this dinner table was worse than any Nightray house-sponsored banquet full of sniveling nobles and fawning idiotic women, and when Ada asked him whether he was enjoying his meal and placed a scented gloved hand on his, Vincent felt an indescribable shudder across the back of his neck and wanted to stab is fork through the meat of her palm in response, (but instead he murmured, “Lovely, my sweet, but not as lovely as seeing your face tonight,” and fought back the urge to retch at his own saccharine tone.)

The evening went from unbearable to impossible with Gilbert there, picking at his food ( _ _your decadent vitals are too much for big brother, inconsiderate wretch, didn’t you think of that before inviting him?__ ), but trying to cover up for his lack of appetite by conversing _ _cheerfully__ with the Vessalius girl, and even making them both __laugh__ at the small memories they shared between each other that Vincent lacked (r _ _ub it in, you silly nit, all the years your family hid my brother away),__  until Vincent didn’t know who to be angry with more: Ada for preying upon Gil like the venomous spider she was, or Gilbert for being so willing to be caught.

The butler interrupted their meal briefly with a whisper to Ada, proffering two boxes. “Oh, Vincent, I do hope you like this,” she said, eyelashes lowered, “this is from the both of us.” ( _ _Both of us! Both of us!__ fumed Vincent. __Only prissy married couples bought joint gifts and how dare–__ ) and to Gilbert, she added conversationally, “And I hope you don’t mind, Gil, but I took your hat to the haberdasher’s to be re-blocked,” which made Vincent stab his knife into the delicate china plate so hard that it cracked. 


	95. Chapter 95

Break's current situation, his view on it

Note: I’m writing Vincent-centric three sentence drabbles in honor of his birthday today. And from the prompt, I couldn’t tell if you wanted Break’s POV about Vince or Vincent’s about Break, so I went with the former.

***

The most annoying thing about being kept in a dungeon, Break decided, wasn’t the damp, or the rodents, or how his untreated wounds were starting to become inflamed, or even that annoying sound of dripping water in the corner which Break was sure was placed there __on purpose__ – no, the worst thing about being kept in a dungeon, Break thought, was that he at least knew how he was faring, but had no idea about the state of his allies (he couldn’t even think of the word __friends__ , for to think of Sharon and Oz and Gil as friends right now would only make this irritation so much worse).

Sharon was separated from him as soon as everyone was rounded up by the Baskervilles, so at least he knew that she was placed elsewhere on Pandora’s premises (for the most logical idea would be to keep them separated as far as possible to prevent easy escape, unless they wanted to torture Sharon within earshot to provoke the albino man); Oz was probably kept in a separate area as well, most likely warded off in the more secure, sorcery–bound  cells in the lower prison towers, considering his importance (if they hadn’t tossed him back into the Abyss already).

That only left the whereabouts of Gilbert, and Break couldn’t help but recount in his head that dead look in the man’s eyes as Glen commanded him to shoot Oz, and how that dead look remained even after he was taken away by Doug and Vincent; __but at least he has his brother with him__ , Break assured himself bitterly, __for if that drain rat could be trusted with anything at all, it would be making sure Gilbert was kept safe.__  


	96. Chapter 96

prompt: a small window.

***

Little Vincent enjoyed the rain, because whenever it rained, the ringmaster allowed him and his brother to stay inside one of the caravan wagons, instead of being left outside in the barred cage, exposed to the elements (because a sick freak was a poor moneymaker, Vincent knew, and felt a cheap sense of gratitude for small mercies).

Another small mercy was the pane of glass that was inserted into the back of the livestock wagon; amid the pigs and sheep – who always got to ride on a caravan wagon – Vincent and Gil would sit cuddled beside each other as they watched the sky’s tears send streaks across the clouded glass.

That rain was hypnotic to watch, and occasionally, when that pane fogged up, both boys took turns tracing their tiny fingers against the glass, drawing scribbles and games of tic-tac-toe and making handprint turkeys that Gil voiced in squawking clucks to make Vince laugh; and after a few hours or a night when the sunlight streamed clear through that tiny window, Vincent’s heart sank, counting the seconds before the ringmaster would throw open the wagon door with a whack from his riding crop and a growl: “All right yer brats, back outside and hurry; the hogs are sick of gawking at yer ugly mugs!”


	97. Chapter 97

Vince/Gil-- Hearts in jars

***

Dust, cobwebs, and the dry smell of bones greeted Vincent as he moved silently between the dusty shelves of a long abandoned laboratory; he had traveled all night to get to this location, prompted by an urgency more serious than the command given by Glen (and how odd it was, to hear that serene and matter-of-fact tone coated by Leo’s voice); the Baskervilles had the body and the spiritual memories of the last Baskerville leader, but one part remained before the resurrection could take place: the piece that contained the essence of the man’s soul.

Once Glen Baskerville was resurrected, the long-renegade House could re-instill the cycle of inheritance once more, killing off the boy (Vincent held no lasting qualms toward Leo, when compared to the benefit brought by his death and the boy had been longing for death anyway) and then transferring that mass of souls inside him into the proper vessel, bringing them one step closer to controlling the Will of the Abyss (and to Vincent’s wish).

 _ _For you, brother,__ thought Vincent sadly as he found the cache of canopic jars where Arthur Barma had hidden them; he’d do this final thing for Gil, who hadn’t stirred from his catatonic state since the shooting ( _ _that damned rabbit, that cursed inhuman blight that ruined Gilbert’s life…__ ); when Vincent found the heart of Oswald Baskerville, he cradled the stone jar in his arms during the bumpy carriage ride back, stroking the enameled surface, thinking of midnight locks and golden eyes and hoping, hoping that seeing his former master in the flesh would stir the spark of awareness in his brother once more.  


	98. Chapter 98

vincent pov catching elliot and leo fUCKING

***

Vincent heard the moans even before he reached the end of the hall (and he wondered which one of them was the loud one and decided that he’d rather not know at the moment), but he decided resolutely that the pair simply could not control themselves, if it’s only been a week into their summer break from Lutwidge.

A twist of the master key led Vincent into Elliot’s receiving chambers (no one else knew he made a copy for himself for his own purposes) and the cruel streak in the man begged for him to throw open Elliot’s bedroom with the innocent declaration, “Oh, was something happening here?”; while he joyously imagined Elliot throwing a screaming fit and Leo scrambling beneath the sheets, the possible amusement shriveled into jealous resentfulness the longer they went on.

So instead, Vincent found himself slouched on the carpet, hearing those cries of elation increase in volume while shredding determined lines into the seat of Elliot’s divan: the only sign that Vincent ever entered, and Elliot never confronted him afterwards out of embarrassment, though he later instructed the maids to replace the cushions because of the manor’s godsdamned mouse problem.


	99. Chapter 99

Now that the Baskervilles captured pandora and Oz it shouldn't be long before the Baskervilles get to the Will of the Abyss. Which means Vincent's request to Leo is closer to happening. I want to see Vincent's thought on this ordeal.

***

Vincent never sleeps anymore because he doesn’t need to, nor does he _want_ to, for he thinks to himself (a delusional thought that only becomes stronger with each passing hour) that he has to be there for Gil, and if he was sleeping, Gil might wake; big brother’d come back to himself in that strange room and be confused and frightened, and it was a priority that Vincent be on hand with a soothing explanation and a kind touch to guide Gilbert back to this changed world.

But the thought that Gilbert would never shake off that vapid stare jolts Vincent alert and banishes any oncoming stupor.

 _ _Gilbert, wake now, please, please__ , Vincent thinks, sitting by the bed and staring at that frighteningly still, but breathing, body, and he fights off that selfish, latent thought that seeps into his mind like a stain: if Gil doesn’t come to his senses soon, then perhaps Vincent would be denied that final dramatic but unstated goodbye he’s planned out for so long, the one where he presses his lips to Gil’s cheek and whispers, “You won’t miss me,” and witnessing that final expression grace Gilbert’s features the moment he leaves for the depths of the Abyss, wishing—


	100. Chapter 100

Break as Kevin Regnard? Like, in his past life

***

The dead woman’s eyes remained open as the white-haired man dragged the corpse by its feet down the broken stairwell of the abandoned manor; her head hit each step with a resound _thunk-thunk-thunk_ until he reached the landing, where it gave a final _crack_ as bits of bone and brain matter splattered upon the remains of the carpet.

 _ _I have to save them__ , he thought, dizzy in his near-exhaustive state, __I have to save them all__ ; women, children, men, young and old, rich and poor, servants and nobles because he was the White Knight, and Albus commanded lives in exchange for the lives he had failed: 116 souls for the 116 members of the household that were slaughtered under his watch, and then Kevin could finally get his wish….

“Stop, Red-Eyed Spectre!” rang a voice from above and Kevin glanced up to see that foreign-born Pandora official at the top of the stairwell, his bare saber pointed downward at him; a sly smirk crossed his pale face and he drawled, “Lord Barma, you cannot stop my thirst for bloody justice,” and dropped the body onto the ground to flourish his own weapon, as he summoned his righteous Chain, “though it’d be fitting for you to be my final sacrifice.”


	101. Chapter 101

break reflecting on gilbert as he grows up

***

Break lives a haunted life built on stolen time but there are moments, like this one, that remind him of the type of strange legacy he is leaving behind: sipping too-sweet tea across the dining room table while Gilbert slouches over on his elbows and simply _glowers_ , when Break comments, “Ah, fu-fu, I suppose you’re still shaken up over the mission last week.”

When Gilbert immediately snaps: “Of course I am, you bastard, because I…I..” and, wordlessly, puts his head in his hands, shoulders shaking, a quiet satisfaction fills Break, for Gilbert is one step closer to becoming the youth Break wishes he could have become: Kevin Regnard was too serious and too self-admonishing, but above all, believed himself to be too good a man to do any wrong, and it was that disastrous arrogance that led Kevin to fall so low.

But Gilbert Nightray will not become another Kevin Regnard, because of those bags under Gil’s eyes and the way his slim fingers trembled over his untouched tea cup; because Gilbert will always grieve over the men he kills, and Break will make sure Gilbert’s tender heart will never become as callous as his had become. 


	102. Chapter 102

Break, on Sharon's parentage

***

The wheezing is always the first thing that would strike a person upon entering Lord Rainsworth’s presence, and then one notices his clouded gaze, and the slight tremor of his fingers as he drags the fountain pen across the stiff parchment; Break watches as the Rainsworth figurehead signs into being his newly established employment contract as Sharon’s new manservant.

“My good man,” comes the brittle broken voice of the lord, a tone that is betrayed by the severe blue gaze that watches the young man, “I have (wheeze), always known that (wheeze), I would never be capable (wheeze) of sheltering my (wheeze) sweet daughter,” and he blinks, slowly, as if in disbelief over the idea that any woman in his family would ever be in need of sheltering – or even be sweet, “but my precious Sharon swears by your dedication to our family, and I cannot protest this.”

He coughs and Break waits discreetly, thinking that he thought he’d never see himself in his position again – one of servitude to a high noble family, overseeing the welfare of another young girl before he had failed due to pride – and he could not keep down the lump in his throat as he gives a bow and murmurs, “It would not be my place to say that I can ever be your replacement, Your Grace, but I can certainly say that I will place her care above all of my other concerns” (and years later, as he watches the Cheshire Cat’s bell disintegrate in his palm, he knows his pledge to be true.)


	103. Chapter 103

Perhaps something about the lengths Break will go to avoid Reim's ever growing pile of paperwork?

***

Reim had been on the search for Break all day, though he knew exactly where the man most likely vanished off to, which made him quite irritable; he had already spent a good amount of that morning transferring files and ledgers from his office to the older (and technically, more senior, official) just so he could finally see the top of his desk; the phone had been ringing off the hook from Accounts Payable for overdue invoices Break was supposed to file months ago; and, finally, Lord Barma had been dictating to Reim a lengthy memo specifically addressed to the absentee employee about his reports concerning his illegal contractor detainment missions that was supposed to be filed by noon: “thy delays are not appreciated as a senior member of our esteemed organization.”

“Break!” Reim fumed, stomping into the smoking lounge that the man had commandeered years ago as his own private office (unlike Reim’s overcrowded cubicle), and seeing Sharon there taking her tea, he marched up to her, pushed up his glasses on the bridge of his nose and said, “You tell that lazy arse to stop spying on me using Equus and get back here this instant!”

And Break’s disembodied, coy voice said in his shadow, “But you’ve had such a busy morning, Reim, and I hadn’t wanted to bother you…”


	104. Chapter 104

A peek into Break and his knitting please?

***

It was Lady Shelly who taught him, during the cold winter months when all Kevin wanted to do was scowl by the fireplace, avoiding the season’s snow as much as possible (snow reminded him too painfully of that winter day splattered with blood, or that haunting psychotic girl in the Abyss, draped in white); though knitting was quite a basic skill, his vision had been fuzzy and slow to recover since losing one good eye and he kept missing stitches and losing count, all resulting in him throwing up a tangled mess of yarn with a grunt of frustration.

Every time he did so, however, Lady Shelly would simply look up from her seat beside him with a subtle smile at the corner of her lips, and eventually, Kevin would begrudgingly pick up the needles and start again.

Years later, if one visits the Rainsworth mausoleum, they would notice a stone angel placed before one of the caskets, with a delicately-knit scarf draped around her neck and every year around the first snowfall, a new one appears to replace the old.


	105. Chapter 105

Break tormenting Gilbert? As we all know it's one of his favourite pastimes? 

***

Tardiness at Pandora wouldn’t normally be a concern for Break (who came in late to work quite frequently on a whim), but the third time in a month that Gilbert had stumbled in, grouchy and pale from a night in the cups, Break decided that there was only one solution: “Time to go out!” he announced after lunch, when Gilbert was sitting at his desk and nursing what appeared to be a splitting headache.

“Break,” he grumbled, “Liam’s been pestering us to get this done and-“ (“But nonsense!” declared Break, jumping on the back of Gilbert’s seat and rubbing his knuckles against the top of his skull—exactly where the root of a hangover headache would reside), and it was only through his cajoling of “You need a bit of air, and I still have vacation days I need to use up before the year’s end!” (though he didn’t), did the pair find themselves at one of Gilbert’s dive bars, with the raven-haired youth sulking and snappish in a corner while adamantly refusing every single shot Break offered.

“Nothing like hair of the dog to fight what ails you,” Break said cheerfully while sucking on a trademark lollipop, and only an hour later, when Gilbert, annoyed and exhausted, finally stopped protesting as Break dragged him up to his apartment, did the old man drop the teasing act, spat out the used candy stick and muttered, “You brat, no matter how bad you get, stop making idiot decisions like this….”


	106. Chapter 106

i was thinking maybe after glen dies all his servants are buried with him? i wonder if it's too far-fetched

***

Kevin Regnard was confused but all he could so was huddle against the far wall, hiding behind a tapestry, wanting to blend in with the walls as the Baskerville court went into chaos; at least, he thought it was chaos, because all of the maids and footmen and gardeners and even old Cook, who would bring him an extra cookie for tea, because he was “the special one” -–all of them were falling into heaps on the floor, the slim vials slipping from their fingers….

Only the Baskerville guard, the old crone, and two men stood in the middle of this room full of bodies, which were all draped on the ground now the ritual suicide was complete; Kevin watched the youthful, gold-eyed Master Glen take a tender hand to close Lord Oswald’s eyes as he laid the bandaged-covered form flat on the raised glass coffin, and clutching the other hand of the former Baskerville leader was Master Jack, who wept openly.

A touch on his shoulder made Kevin whirl around with a gasp, only to see that friendly bi-colored gaze (and his heart lifted, for Master Vincent was his favorite member out of this strange new household, and the blond was quite fond of him too); a white gloved finger pressed against the young child’s lips as Master Vincent murmured, “Come, come now, dear Kevin, don’t be scared; we have to learn to be brave knights in the face of extinction, you understand? Especially us.”


	107. Chapter 107

Writing three-line drabble requests in honor of Leo’s birthday today!

Prompt: “Candy”

***

Growing up, every market day, his mother left him alone while she went to sell fresh eggs and knitware at the town square (she told him it was so he could mind the livestock - but Leo knew better, that she wanted to shield him away from the intrusive stares of other townfolks at his peculiar eyes and whispers about the widower with the strange child); Leo didn’t mind at all, for chickens and pigs and the grumpy old cow never bothered him like the village children did.

When she returned, there was always a small gift in her side-purse, wrapped in an embroidered handkerchief: a hard-boiled ginger candy dusted with refined sugar, or a slightly sour lemon drop or a pulled nougat or – when she was able to sell all of the eggs that day – an exquisite chocolate caramel that contained a tan swirl in the middle; these sweets Leo nibbled on for an entire day, trying to make them last for as long as possible.

At the Nightray household years later, Elliot surprised Leo with a whole tin of chocolate caramels for his first birthday at the manor, and Leo trembled, hands clasping either side of the silver casing, before dropping the entire thing on the marble floor and running away; seeing all of those uniform sweets in rows and rows made Leo remember all of the work his mother put into getting that tiny piece from the market and the rage and grief somehow overwhelmed him… but later on, Leo apologized to Elliot and said simply that he didn’t like candy at all and please never to get him any sweets ever again.


	108. Chapter 108

Writing three-line drabble requests in honor of Leo’s birthday. Prompt: Alcohol

***

“Drink,” whispered the boy, presenting a glass of full-bodied red before Rufus Barma; the man received the glass with a casual hand, but out of habit, cradled it in his palm and feigned the first sip as Leo gave a grave toast; “Thank you,” the Baskerville vessel muttered, eyes distant, and Rufus sensed a shift in posture, a straightening of the spine, an unclenching of the Nightray sword that he had clutched to his chest only seconds before, a strange curve of the lips as the youth lowered the glass and Rufus bowed his head (not out of habit, but respect).

“Welcome, Glen,” he greeted and the man laughed as the last shards of crystal were swept away by Doug behind them; Rufus wondered with a slight sense of discomfort where the boy went but knew it was better not to think of Leo anymore, and yet despite his pragmatism he couldn’t help but add, “was the farewell your idea or his?”

“It wasn’t a farewell,” Glen Baskerville said softly, lowering the glass, “Those words were for me, since he knows,” and that twisted smile grew, “that if everything works according to plan, someone he cared deeply about would still be alive.” 


	109. Chapter 109

Can you write how Oz, Ada and Gil spent Oz's birthday when they were kids? You know, before all this madness started

***

Since Oz’s birthday fell so close to Winter Solstice*, he never had his own birthday party, but the household would be bustling with seasonal cheer. Oz, in that self-centered way that young children live their lives, thought all of the Solstice decorations, charity-giving, and fancy parties were being held in his honor (not that he was persuaded otherwise by his indulgent mother.) He’d get stuffed animals and wind-up ducks and nutcracker soldiers to play with, though as each year passed, Oz grew more and more uncomfortable playing with these toys and gave them to Ada instead.

The year that Rachel Cecile died, there were no Solstice celebrations. All of the love and light seemed to vanish from the world. Oz wanted no presents, either – he wanted Zai Vessalius to hug him and Ada and tell them everything was going to be all right. But that man had vanished months ago from the manor, and only showed up sporadically to check on the estate (and never on Oz).

Uncle Oscar, however, surprised them on Solstice morning with presents and laughter and told them that they were going to celebrate the holiday at his manor that year. That was how everything went until the year Gilbert came and Uncle Oscar reverted to visiting his brother’s estate instead.

The Boxing Day after Solstice, Oz gave Gil a chess board for a gift (he didn’t like the thought of giving those Jack-in-the-Boxes or the wind-up blackbird that sang when you turned a key that were popular that year). This was the first gift Gilbert ever remembered receiving, and even though he didn’t know how to play chess, he was overjoyed and he, Ada and Oz played rounds of chess all day (or rather, Oz kept trying to teach Gil how to play and both of them kept trying to stop Ada from sucking on the pieces.)

Oz’s birthday fell a few days after, and on that morning, Gilbert gave him a set of dominoes (using money that Uncle Oscar had given him), and they spent all day playing as the wind blustered outside and the snow fell.

Every year since then, Oz would give Gilbert one board game for Boxing Day and Gilbert would give him a new game on his birthday, and they would spend the days in between organizing elaborate tournaments between the three of them, where each round was a new game and the losers had to do terribly embarrassing things (and Gil was the one who mostly lost, though, he eventually got better at chess.)

*Fun fact: I don’t think Judeo-Christian traditions exist in the same way in the world of Pandora Hearts as they do in ours. Plus, since even their calendar is different, no one celebrates Christmas on our “December 25th “. 


	110. Chapter 110

Oz, prompt, stars

***

Oz didn’t believe in fate, but the household staff loved to discuss horoscopes and what good or bad tidings fell upon them on whatever happenstance day. Gil was prone to be more superstitious the more he spent time in the kitchens because Cook was especially prone to blame things on the stars (especially when the souffle got burnt by accident).

When Gilbert came to Oz one day in a nervous fit about discovering how he was born under “an unlucky star,” Oz promptly dragged him to the attic of the manor with his father’s telescope that he removed form its usual place in the library. 

“See that?” he asked, after setting up the contraption. Lowering his head to look, Gilbert immediately felt the rising flush of red over his cheeks, for he immediately regretting saying such a stupid thing in front of his master as soon as he had said it.

“Y-yes…”

“Tell me what you see?”

Moments passed. “They’re, um, stars, Oz.”

“And what are stars made of?”

“Um…”

“Father’s books says that they are nothing but balls of gas.” Oz crossed his arms and frowned. “You’re saying that our lives are influenced by a bunch of gas?”

“N-no… well, I mean, the gods, maybe they live in the stars and, uh…”

Oz wouldn’t go as far as to say that there weren’t any _gods_ but he did reply, with a smirk, “That’s not my question. My question is whether you think balls of gas have anything to do with our lives down here? Do they matter?”

Gil raised his head, scratched the back of it and mumbled, “But Cook said…”

“Who are you going to believe more? Cook or me?” Oz hated using this tactic, because it exposed the inequality of their relationship, but he did it anyway. The thought of his fate being controlled by something as pointless as the things in the sky started to bother him the more he thought about it.  It made him feel insignificant and even more alone, a puppet made to be controlled by others and not really… himself… (and he had that terrible feeling sometimes, that he wasn’t Oz Vessalius but something else… or nothing at all…)

“You.” The answer was immediate. Gil gave him a serious look. “I never doubt you,” he said firmly.

Oz could believe in that, at least.


	111. Chapter 111

Oz,prompt: quarrel

***

Oz rarely quarreled with anyone; he preferred to sit back and let people work out their issues around him–and, partly, he didn’t like the idea that anyone _could_ have an issue with him. So as outgoing and exuberant as Oz could be, he also had a tendency since he was a toddler of saying neutrally kind things or funny things or uncommitted sentiments that were agreeable to everyone. Or he learned to say things in an especially endearing or naive way that excused any naughty behavior he committed:

“Oh, how sunny, today is!  Look at the gardens! The blooms are opening up like magic.”

“Hey, look, the coachman’s got his breeches on inside out!”

“But Ms. Kate, I didn’t mean to knock the vase from the sideboard. It just… became too sleepy to stand up straight.”

One of the rare times that he got into head-long, infuriating fight was once when he was minding baby Ada when she was in her “annoying bratty stage” at three years old. At six, Oz thought he knew so much more than Ada ever did (since all she did was cry and chew on her hair ribbons and got into Oz’s stuff all the time only to rip things and tear them apart).

“No!” he shouted, when he saw that she scribbled all inside his favorite storybook, __The Red Book of Fairy Tales__. “Stupid sister! Why can’t you not touch what’s mine!” He gave a sharp whack at Ada’s head that sent her tumbling and bawling. Ms. Kate came rushing into the playroom and pulled Oz away before he could get another smack in, and then sat him down in the corner to wait out the day until Lady Vessalius returned.  

Oz, red-faced and sniffing, couldn’t meet Rachel’s eyes as Ms. Kate brought her in.

“’Snot fair,” he said bitterly. “She’s stupid.”

“Your sister is three years old, Oz. You’re her big brother.” Rachel picked Oz up and sat him in her lap. "Oz Vessalius, listen to me.” He pouted and stared at his shoes, brow furrowed. 

“Oz Vessalius,” she repeated in her Stern Voice, and Oz reluctantly raised his face. “I understand you’re angry and it wasn’t fair that your sister ruined your book.”

“Oh?” Oz scowled. “Then why am I punished?”

“You know who you are, right, dearest?”

“Oz Vessalius.”

“And the heir to the Vessalius Dukedom.” Rachel stroked his downy hair and a sad look crossed her face that Oz could not understand. “One day, you’ll be master over the entire Dukedom and all of the people in it. And sometimes, people do silly things and they might ruin things and people may blame you. It isn’t fair. But you’re the one who needs to protect them, just as you’re the one who needs to protect your little sister.”

“But __why__?”

“Because that’s what good lords and ladies do.” She kissed the top of his head and smiled into his hair. A small, wistful smile, but Oz didn’t know. “Good people have to deal with unfair things sometimes, because only they are strong enough to do it. No one else. Just them. Without strong people, terrible things can befall everyone, and the world would turn into a much sadder place.”

“I don’t get it,” Oz said, still stubborn. “Why am __I__ the only strong one here?”

“Everyone has to learn to be strong in their own way. When you’re older, you’ll be able to see how each person does it. But for you, my little lord, you are made to protect those that have less than you. That’s how you’re strong.”

Oz sniffled. “Can… can I still get a new book though?”

“Yes.” A merry laugh. “Of course, dear heart.” Rachel turned her head away as Oz hugged her tight, happy and relieved. A quick hand passed over her face then, but when she faced Oz once more, only bright eyes and a warm smile greeted him. “Now can you apologize to your sister for me?”

Years later, he’d recall this moment and realize just how strong Rachel Cecile was being then, and how strong she had been for years, in ways he never knew.


	112. Chapter 112

modern au, gilbert (and leo of course), something silly with videogames?

***

Gilbert didn’t know how it started. He wasn’t into video games. The best he could muster was a round of Angry Birds while riding the subway, but here he was. The time was on the near side of 6 AM, his eyes were bloodshot and itching from sleep deprivation. This had been going on for three nights straight, but he couldn’t help it.

“Fus ro dah!”

The draugr toppled over the cliff. Gilbert cackled at the descent of the onscreen undead and knocked back the rest of his bottle of Coke.

“This is so much fun! I can’t believe Elliot never showed me Skyrim before…”

“But you know,” Leo started, looking up from his own console (they had set up a LAN party of two, and Leo was already several missions ahead). “There are other things than-“

“Fus ro dah!”

“Tee hee hee hee….look at them…”

“Um, you’ve been doing that-”

“Fus ro dah!”

“For the past hour-“

“Fus ro dah!” Gilbert shouted in Leo’s face.

Leo sighed and turned back to his game.


	113. Chapter 113

Vincent & Gilbert, when Gil is first introduced to the Nightray household

***

  
Break was usually silent about Vincent during the arrangements that were made to bring Gilbert into the Nightray household as their newly adopted nobleman. Each time Gilbert ventured to ask the while-haired man about his supposed younger brother, Break would give a flippant shrug and reply, “He says he knows you,” though a lingering sense of dis-ease would mask his indifference.  
  
Gilbert couldn’t imagine himself having any siblings at all (maybe a sister, like Ada). The thought of not-remembering Vincent created a ball of worry at the pit of his stomach (Was it possible to forget an entire person? What kind of terrible person was Gilbert, to forget his _own brother_?) What was Vincent like? Would he still feel affection for Gilbert after meeting him? Or would Gil somehow only disappoint? That was the most dreadful part of all, and Gilbert could not figure out why: it wasn’t the idea of a total stranger laying claim to being a part of Gilbert’s past, but the pressure that Gilbert had expectations to live up to, standards he couldn’t even measure or control.

That crucial moment, then, standing in Vincent’s rooms, seeing that boy (pale, gaunt) ripping that stuffed toy (what was wrong with him?), that over-excited grin and enthusiastic embrace—

Gilbert flinched, unthinkingly, recoiling as the pain echoed inside his skull:

__andlaugherandvincentwhereareyoucarryingmeandbloodandjackandwhydidyounoididn’twantthistohappenmasterglenmasterwait-_ _

 At that split moment, he felt the first weight of failure drop onto his shoulders.

Break’s words echoed in his head: __“Use what’s available…anything…anyone…”__

Only years later did Gilbert look upon that moment and knew that was the first and only time he willingly betrayed his brother.

But that had been enough.


	114. Chapter 114

Gilbert. Prompt: Music, letters, dance.

***

Gilbert was never musically-inclined, though he had a habit of humming folk ballads to himself while doing other things, like cooking or cleaning his guns or when patrolling during a quiet night. Sometimes, he’d start a tune to himself and Break would catch him in the act. Usually, this resulted in teasing remarks about Gilbert turning into Pandora’s mockingbird and then ended with Break singing the lyrics as loud as he possibly could (which was quite embarrassing for many reasons, one of which was because Break possessed no singing talent whatsoever.)

Other times, Gilbert would sing quietly to himself while distracted to pass the time when completing busywork in the office. One such occasion, Break stopped in his tracks and poked his head in the reporting room while Gilbert filed some old letters in the dossier for his latest target.

“Warbling a classic there, Raven.”

“Hmmm?” Gil looked from his papers.

“That jig. It’s a dance hall tune that no one plays anymore. Hadn’t heard it since….” Break became somber for a moment, stared at Gilbert hard and asked, “Where do you know it from?”

“I… well, I dunno….” Gilbert flushed, unsure. “Is… is it a bad song?”

Break shook his head. “No. Only old. Quarter-time jigs were fashionable in your grandfather’s tavern. They died off when the high-steppers became illegal under the obscenity laws 50 years ago.”

Gilbert chuckled and raised his hands defensively, though he had no idea why he felt the need to. “Vince always thought I had old-fashioned tastes in music… I mean….” he tried to recall when he picked up that song, and how, and where, when a dull ache crept up from the bottom of his skull. Gilbert clenched his eyes shut and snapped, “But if I’m bothering you, I can leave.”  
  
Gilbert huffed out of the room, leaving Break watching curiously at his retreating back.

Forever afterwards, a strange sense of paranoia overcame Gilbert whenever songs that weren’t popular ballads popped into his head, and he immediately shut down those tunes before the words reached his lips.


	115. Chapter 115

Gilbert. Prompt: Melted Chocolate. Ozbert

***

Swirls of rich sweetness laced across the smooth, pale flesh. Gilbert flinched, cock twitching, as the cords of warmth drizzled along his thighs. Muffled moans escaped his throat as he bit against the linen gag.  Turning his head to the side, exposing the column of neck, Gil let another small sound escape as Oz dangled the silver spoon inches above his exposed skin.

“Happy birthday to you,” Oz sang softly, letting the spoon circle between loose fingers, the melted chocolate dripping from its rounded end. “Happy birthday to you…’

“Oz,” Gil pleaded through the cloth. “I can’t take this… please…” His right hand clenched and unclenched uselessly above his wrist that was pinned to the bed frame above his head.  

“Happy birthday dear Gilbert…”

Gil jerked his arm against the silken ties. There was just enough slack where Oz had looped the scarves around the bed frame so Gil’s muscles weren’t tired, but he couldn’t bear being in this position any longer. 

“Happy birthday to you.” That mischievous grin flashed over Gil as Oz laid the spoon on the bedside table and licked the chocolate from his fingers. Unlike Gil, who was squirming nude upon the black sheets, the blond youth still had his white nightshirt on, though unbuttoned and falling off his freckled shoulders. Oz sat between Gil’s spread knees and the mirth danced in his eyes as he watched Gilbert flex his head backwards, black tendrils fanning out over the pillows in frustration.

A single finger smeared the chocolate designs, followed by the wet trail of Oz’s tongue. The throaty noises that came from his lover sent shivers all the way down Oz’s back and hit him at the fork between his legs. This, Oz enjoyed the most, every year since their first embrace, the only time that Gilbert permitted him to do this. 

It was Oz’s own special present for Gilbert, but he considered it an annual treat for himself too.


	116. Chapter 116

Oz and Gilbert

***

A fine column of ash accumulates at the end of the cigarette, the tiny crisp burn eating away at the paper as the wisp of smoke laces its way through the air. Suddenly, a wild hand knocks the cigarette from its carefully positioned spot on the balcony railing, sending pricks of grey ash falling upon bare skin, making Gil cry out and Oz smirk. Go figure – Oz had intruded on Gilbert’s after dinner smoke, letting the man forget the taste of nicotine for someone even more addictive (might as well, since Oz hates the taste of smoke on his tongue, and Gilbert loves the taste of Oz on his).


	117. Chapter 117

Nightraycest

***

Gilbert refuses to play the victim to Vincent’s advances, even as his fingernails rake lines along the pale backside of his brother, grappling to throw him off. Vincent laughs, knowing the game, and only finches when Gilbert slams the back of his head against the whitewashed wall of this cheap, dank apartment Gil lives in, sending bits of plaster onto the scarred wooden floor. Vincent concedes, willingly, arching into Gilbert’s grip as sharp little bites mark his neck (“Oh brother’s _vicious_ tonight,” he hisses, letting Gilbert vent out all of his frustrations along his body).


	118. Chapter 118

Levi/Lacie

***

Blood was never a detriment to their trysts, especially as Levi’s health unraveled and Lacie had a fondness for making love while her monthly flower bloomed. Slick with crimson, Levi hefted Lacie up against the tiled wall of the bath, making imprints of red along her sides with his stained hands as he thrust inside of her (he coughed, she came). Later, lying on the cold porcelain tiles, Lacie brushed her hand across his face and left her mark on him before giving a satisfied sigh and pulling the bell chain for servants to fetch them hot water for the bath.


	119. Chapter 119

Oswald/Jack

***

Oswald doesn’t know what his sister saw in him, not even this close, while pressing his fingers against the curve of Jack’s hip, dragging his touch to where the center of the other man’s desire lay, throbbing. _What a mystery (or a marvel),_ he thinks as Jack bucks and moans, unashamed as the dabbled sunshine fell upon their unclothed bodies. Rolling on top of Jack, Oswald gave one glance upwards at the engraved words before him, bracing himself against the tombstone with both hands as if trying to read the thoughts of the dead as he plunged deep inside the living.


	120. Chapter 120

Elliot/Leo  
***  
Leo feels Elliot’s fingers slide beneath his shirt but pretends he doesn’t, focusing on the book in front of him. The seduction of Lady Cavalier becomes suspiciously parallel to his own predicament, as Elliot hugs him from behind, his warm hands palming his chest and slipping downward to other places. It still takes another good ten minutes of Elliot’s insistent touches until, frustrated, the blond Nightray grabs the volume from Leo’s trembling grip and tosses it across the room (not that Leo minded—he was merely waiting for a dramatic conclusion before he engaged in a more physical form of entertainment.)


	121. Chapter 121

Vincent / Ada

***

Tea time was never a meal that Vincent cared much for: in fact, he ate very little, only nibbling quick bites off of cold plates at various hours of the evening into the late night, and sitting down for a long duration for a meal proved tedious at best and mind-numbingly boring at worst (usually because those meals involved being with the Nightray elders whom he despised or society, which he despised even more). Yet Lady Ada loved her high tea, and because this was Lady Ada and Vincent convinced himself it was to all part of his grand plan of seduction (and certainly not for _any_ other reason), there he sat, sipping dainty at Darjeeling and letting Ada pop bites of treacle tart or forkfuls of frosted cake into his mouth. Ada blushed, pouring him a second cup, and when her hand brushed his as she offered back the delicate china, Vincent couldn’t help the smile cross his face, and perhaps tea time wouldn’t be insufferable after all—that was, until she started talking about her translations of the Lost Scrolls of Aberlaan-la…. 


	122. Chapter 122

Break/Cheshire

***

 _What a peculiar feeling it is, to have your own eye staring back at you_ , Break thinks, stroking his hand along the demon cat’s belly (Cheshire’s one vulnerability it seems, besides his undying dedication to his mistress). The Chain lies on its back, tail twitching in contentment, a low purr rumbling in his throat, arms raised with bent wrists like any contented anthropomorphic feline. Of course, a naughty thought or two crosses Break’s mind as he slips his left hand along the cutway sides of the male’s shirt ( _“That tom’s not neutered”,_ he notes as Cheshire wiggled his hips along the ground), but that still doesn’t stop the man from reaching for his sword cane (he is at a perfect angle to get that eye back, after all…)


	123. Chapter 123

Sharon/Reim (Liam)

***  
In Liam’s mind, what remained most significant in his life was the two years he spent at the Rainworth’s estate as the welcomed guest/Stockholmed hostage/ defected spy of the household— and, inadvertently, the playmate and confidante to Miss Sharon. And while Miss Sharon witnessed the awkwardness of his formative years from boy to man, to him, she appeared to be a frozen remembrance from his youth. 

No, not frozen, he realizes much later, as she presses her softly-scented lips to his — she is very much alive, and warm, and her slender body even more precious and soft cradled here in his arms….


	124. Chapter 124

Levi/Lacie

***

Levi considered himself an artist as much as he was a scientist: he took nature and divided it into categories, elements, and measurements, but saw the delicate pleasures that the world’s logic presented to him, and how the brokenness of the Abyss was horrible mar upon the physics of the universe and a blasphemy against creativity itself.  
  
Human nature, he found, was also as beautiful and nonsensical as this tragic world was, and that was the one lesson he taught his Lacie once she started asking questions about her fate.

Carefully, with every word and touch and lesson, he molded her into a thing of logical, chaotic wonder that mastered the brevity of her life through her destructive will: she was his masterpiece, his Galatea, and he her Pygmalion.


	125. Chapter 125

Leo/Oz

***

A warm hand circles his cock and Leo tenses, eyes shut as it moves up and down. He refuses to utter a sound, though he was alone (and will be, he knew, even as a contrary chuckle echoed in his head otherwise) and he opens his eyes to see his twin’s tear-stained face in his mirror. A failure of imagination – impossible! – but in this cold, silent room, not even he could conjure up the image of that blond Nightray to comfort him, and Leo clutched at the wood scrolling on the side of the mirror, crying out with no relief, his double a mimic and companion in his sorrow.  


	126. Chapter 126

Nightraycest

***

Sometimes, Gilbert pretended these things didn’t happen, making excuses to why Vincent pressed against him while they slept (the bed was narrow), why his hand clutched the curve of his hip that tightly (stress dreams), that the heat and sweat between them was from the covers, and the oppressive summer air.

Vincent played along, admitted nothing during the day of their midnight touches, of the muffled cries they made into pillows or against their bare muscles, chest to chest, mouth to collarbone, lips to the bony ridge of vertebrae.

Even the maids, upon discovering evidence on bedclothes and nightgowns in the morning, kept mum: the Nightray household was very good at keeping dark secrets contained.


	127. Chapter 127

Ozbert

***

Oz’s hair wasn’t fine, but thick and coarse, and had a tendency of sticking up every which way in the morning that would rival Gil’s own dreaded nickname of “seaweed head”—-  ”Duckbill,” Gil teased, upon rolling over to see a tuff of blond stick straight up on the back of the youth’s head.

“Shaddup,” muttered Oz (he was always titchy without a decent night’s sleep — not that either regretted the reason why) and batted at the back of his head woefully trying to pin down the wayward lock.

The duckbill stayed, no matter now much combing — or even pomade — was applied to it and Oz blushed whenever someone commented, until Gilbert pulled him into an empty hallway and pressed his lips down top of his head (“You’re adorable,” he said, and suddenly, Oz didn’t care about the state of his hair for the remainder of the day.) 


	128. Chapter 128

Sharon/Break

***

“You have no idea how crass a knight can truly be,” Break smirked as he rolled over and stretched as he rose from the bed; Sharon only huffed and snatched the volume from his hand to place protectively back on her boudoir sidetable.   
  
“The only crass one is you,” she snipped and he smiled (“Exactly.”)

At breakfast, after pulling her chair to help seat her at the table, he took that same carefree gesture of his hand to his lips and in front of the family and staff, murmured, “Oh, Miss Sharon, I can still smell you on my fingertips.”

She turned beet-red and only jumped across the butter dish to attack him when he added, after a moment of shocked silence, “You’ve put on quite a bit of perfume today.”


	129. Chapter 129

Rufus, anatomy

***

Phrenology was viewed as a foreign practice in the nation the Barma family had fled to, a science that denied the power of the angels, practiced by godless heathens whose arrogance smacked in the face of all that was good and holy—the Barma family, nonetheless, were judged by the color of their hair (“demon red”) and the narrowness of their noses (“wicked, scheming faces”).

Rufus’ father, a pragmatic man, taught him all that he needed to know to gather information (knowledge was the key to their survival, in this land where ignorance prevailed) and measured the exact breath of the forehead and where every bump or dip on the skull determined qualities of character.

Rufus neither believed in what the noble families said about his face nor what his father foretold in the geography of his skull: instead, he knew that the meaning of truth was subjective, and it was the manipulation of facts that proved character, and nothing else.


	130. Chapter 130

Rufus, grandson

***

“There is no such thing as a noble lineage,” was a Barma saying that traveled down through the generations, “only a powerful one.”

Arthur Barma had coined the phrase – he had been a respected count in the kingdom he left and now lived as the sort of impoverished lord was that fashionable to keep in a more stable royal court as a sign of diplomatic charity; during the power vacuum after the Tragedy, Jack Vessalius graced him control over Pandora, a seat that the Barma family guarded since then.

Rufus traced that very line of text in Arthur Barma’s notebooks and wondered, briefly, what words he would bestow to his grandson – if he ever had one, that is – about the meaning of power and the sacrifices one had to make to protect it (“No such thing as a powerful lineage… only a surviving one…”)


	131. Chapter 131

Rufus, anemone

***

As a child, Rufus kept his hair short and knotted in braids, as was the custom with local nobles, until that day he went to play at the beach with some distant relations.

Rufus mocked how his other male cousins had hair down to their waist, never cut, as being nothing but weak women, until one of them, prideful and indigent, pushed him over some of the rocky boulders and into a tidal pool.

“Better than having a head like a sea anemone!” he shouted, as Rufus’ head popped up from the water, his short locks a mass of limp tentacles (and that was why, years later, he’d get especially irritated whenever someone called Gilbert “seaweed head”, not out of sympathy, but out of self-centered bitterness.)


	132. Chapter 132

Rufus, blue feather

***

Rufus once gave Lady Sheryl a pair of rock-blue turtledoves for St. Belligeron’s Day, implying that blue feathers, no matter how many, were not enough to express his adoration for her.

He ordered Reim to carry these temperamental birds, who bit and snapped at the poor boy all the way to the Rainsworth manor, and present them personally to Lady Sheryl.

The turtledoves, immediately upon seeing the Lady, did what turtledoves do best: poo straight upon her shoes, before giving Reim a nip on the fingers and flying away in a storm of blue feathers; Lady Sheryl commented that if these birds represented anything, it was exactly how ill-suited marrying a Barma would be.


	133. Chapter 133

Rufus, ribbon

***

Rufus refuses to wear this hair in any other way but down, a long flowing streak of crimson. Long hair, he would sniff archly when questioned (in the rare occasion that he was) marked nobility in his ancestors’ homeland, for to cut or tie one’s hair back implied that one needed to labor for some reason, or was nothing more than a commoner.

The only exception was one formal ball hosted by the Vessalius family to honor the fiftieth anniversary of the fallen hero’s death, when Lady Cheryl had bestowed him a gift of pearl-colored ribbon to wear while playing the role of her “valet”: the ribbon was entwined in a queue down his back (when asked, he said it was most appropriate for the occasion, and left it at that.)


	134. Chapter 134

Rufus, kiss

***

Displays of affection were not something that Rufus Barma engaged in casually, but with much deliberation and calculation.

Case in point: after Reim Lunettes was finally returned to the Barma household after his two years of captivity at the Rainsworth estate, the embarrassed servant went down on one knee and kissed Barma’s ring before the entire household to reaffirm his loyalty to the house (another fanciful show for the servants to gossip about for noble families to eventually hear, of course, since Barma had ordered the young man to stay there as a spy until ordered to leave).

Feeling the press of the man’s lips upon his gloved fingers, Lord Barma smiled, and let his hand stroke beneath the man’s chin, causing him to blush even further (more gossip, he thought, a perfect set-up—nothing like instigating rumors of an affair with his manservant to convince others that all suspicions between them were gone…)


	135. Chapter 135

Rufus, severed

***

Rufus has never killed a man, though he had ordered many men (and women and children) to be killed (though not necessarily for him, but, always, for Pandora, or for the family clan, or for the sake of politics and the royal family).

So when he woke one morning with the distressed knocking of the house steward in response to the severed head of one of his spies left in front of the manor, with the message “AN EYE FOR AN EYE” scrawled in the dead man’s blood across the marble steps, Lord Barma was genuinely puzzled.

Not the he didn’t understand the killer’s motivation (and prepared sufficiently against it) or the proper response he should take (in fact, he had plotted for that man’s death anyway, but he had to sound properly tiffed for front’s sake): yet the idea that he was the _recipient_ of quid-pro-quo violence – that this man’s life was _truly_ regrettably lost and that was equal compensation to the woman he had killed upon Barma’s order – well, that was _laughable_ (and he did laugh, privately, in his chambers after the mess was cleaned up, over the whole kerfluffle).


	136. Chapter 136

sub!Vincent/dom!Gilbert

***

“ _Be quiet_ ,” came the whisper, stern, and part of Vincent desperately wanted to obey (because Vincent would dedicate everything to his older brother, his life, his body, his soul, everything) and he knew that they couldn’t be caught and that servants always gossiped, and that this was not the first time Gilbert had snuck into his room, golden eyes hungry as he pulled the bedclothes down from his body.

A gasp, a lurch ( _be quiet, be quiet_ , echoed the command), and the blond clasped both hands over his mouth as his older brother bent his head between Vince’s thighs, tongue reaching the hardness between.

A squeal — a curling little utterance like a mouse — escaped Vincent’s lips as Gilbert shoved his hips down using both hands, head raised in a playful growl: “I _told_ you to be quiet,” his voice dropping a register, making him want to release the pent-up moans even more.


	137. Chapter 137

Break/Vincent

***

Part of Break wishes he were drowning the sewer rat, shoving his head beneath a pool of water as he trashed and screamed bubbles up to the surface. But the greater (and more vicious, and more devious) part of him knows that Vincent is drowning, dying in a way that only the albino man could provide, pounding him from behind in that cold, isolated hallway of Pandora.

Every gasping cry the Nightray made (one out of passion, unresisting) gave the Mad Hatter a deep and profound sense of satisfaction that overcame the hatred and disgust, because this is his triumph; he won one over that damned rat, Vincent was his, all his….


	138. Chapter 138

femleo/elliot

***

Elliot preferred not to couch things in polite or indirect terms: he preferred bluntness and action. This is why he loved the way she moved against him and murmured, “Yes, do it, fool, do it,” in the moments when, in actuality, she gave him no choice because it was  _her_  kissing him (and yes, Elliot preferred this, but prayed no one found out!)

Nonetheless, he had to the one to best her (he _was_  the Nightray in this relationship after all) and they flipped positions against the wall in a quick turn as he pressed her against the wood paneling, mouthing her neck and slipping a knee between her legs….


	139. Chapter 139

Sharon/Break - breath

***

Break rarely became visibly irritable nowadays, unlike years ago, when he first emerged from the Rainsworth doorway, the injured, nameless wanderer who would never speak of his past: a shadow of his former self always re-surfaced, however, when he was ill (and even that was rarer).

“I don’t need your help,” he mumbled, though he was gravely injured after that last encounter with the Baskervilles and she knew how much he was falling apart. He fended off the maids who assisted in undressing him (“I can handle myself—I’m no noble”) and the physician who attended to his wounds (“Medicine? Since when did I ever need medicine?”) until everyone had left as annoyed as he was, leaving the two of them alone in the bedroom.

“What are you doing here?” Break rolled over onto his side, reaching for the covers (Sharon resisted the urge to pull them over his thin, bandaged frame), “Why aren’t you being de-briefed by Lord Barma?”

She waved her fan. “I’m only making sure you’re doing what the doctor ordered and—”

“Fine.” Down when the sleeping tablets and Break smirked. “Fair enough, nanny?”

Sharon crossed her arms and looked away before leaving the room.

After the meeting, however, she snuck back to see the man slumbering. Pulling her chair to his bedside, only then did she reach for the rumpled bedsheets to straighten them over his chest, letting her hands feel the warmth of his body and the breath that rose and fell, rose and fell. That soft motion made her feel suddenly warm too, and breathless and she let her hands remain there for a moment, until, ever so slightly, she lowered her head upon the blankets and carefully, oh so carefully, rested her ear against his chest, letting the beat of her heart move in time with his.  


	140. Chapter 140

Sharon, Romans

***

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” was a saying that Sharon heard once or twice, but wasn’t sure what that meant specifically, especially when it was Break who was saying it and doubly so when it came to teasing her while he leafed through one of her novels.

“’As Hadrian knelt before Antinous Pius’s imposing frame, he knew deep within himself that he would dedicate everything to this man, even if it meant forsaking his political ambitions,” he drawled, flipping to a random passage, “ ‘Oh dear friend, you are my more dearest, most loyal companion, and I plead to you, in a man’s most faithful vow, that you remain and not heed the Ceasar’s command.’ Oh Antinous!”

“Break!” She snatched the book, red-faced. “They are best friends and of course, Hadrian does not want him to go to war!”

“Friends? Really?” He arched an eyebrow, leaning his chair and propping his boots on the table.

“Yes! Of course you would not understand the meaning of deep, spiritual friendship,” she sniffed, taking a sip of her tea.

As she lowered her cup, suddenly Break’s face appeared within inches of hers. “Do you consider us to have a deep, spiritual friendship?” he whispered lowly.

The sound of the book hitting the man on the head was satisfying to hear, but not as satisfying as that feeling the timbre of his voice evoked in her belly. Too many sweets had gotten her flustered, Sharon told herself. That was all.


	141. Chapter 141

FemLevi/MaleLacie

***

She watched him grow up, her little rebel, and in an odd way, he was still fighting her like a child would, although they were two adults doing very un-childlike things. Pushing down her wrists, biting the ridge of collarbone, press the full weight of himself into Levi, all the while those wine red eyes staring down in lust and determination. As if he could stop this – that they could quit each other. That he could leave anytime he wanted. One quick rut and then back into the night up to his Tower, swaggering in the triumph of a sexual conqueror.

She laughed, hips bouncing, a smirk in her eyes. Breaking his hold (which hadn’t been strong), she wrapped her sinewy arms around his broad shoulders and purred, “Yes, fuck me hard, fill me, my darling….”

A grunt, a shove into the mattress and she “Oompf!"ed in a rather unattractive manner. At this point, his roughness wasn’t out of spite or desire but venting a dark resentment and Levi shoved the young black-haired man off. "This round of testing is over,” she said as the other youth tumbled off.

Instead of pouncing back like she expected, he slumped against the side of the bed. “Why do you always have to say things like that?” he muttered.  

“What? I thought you agreed to this experiment,” she kneeled on the bed, nude, and massaged herself at the fork of her legs where he had been a bit too rough. “Plant a child in my belly and once this body transforms into a Chain in the Abyss, it will birth a child there. A new change in this wretched world.”

“Yes, I know,” the Child of Misfortune snapped, flicking back a lock of raven hair. “But you don’t make it sound… scientific…”

“Should I? What would you rather have me ask of you? Fifteen minutes to jerk off in a tube and a turkey baster?” She got to her hands and knees and flexed, cat-like, her white braids scattering across her slim shoulders. Crawling across the silken sheets, she rubbed her head against her lover’s side. “We are scientists, but that does not mean we have to treat each other like objects. We’re still  alive.”

He bowed his head and a slow grin crossed his visage. “True, still alive,” he said softly, after several long moments. Turning, he caressed her face. “In this bastard-beautiful world,” he sighed, but that glow was returning to his face. That demon-sly look she had always cherished.

“With this piss-poor excuse for living.” She kissed him, gently, and pulled him down to her. “You always understood this so well, my sweet boy.”

This realm was a tragedy, but together, for a few hours at least, it became glorious.


	142. Chapter 142

Something with Gilbert and Elliot before Gil contracted Raven?

***

“Ignore those kids,” Ernest had told him, and Elly tried hard, he truly did, because he always tried to listen to what his big brothers said and so when the young Nightray caught Gilbert reading in the garden, he stayed in his own sheltered corner, where he had a tree fort assembled out of scraps of wood and wool blankets on loan from the stables.

He tried his very best all afternoon, sneaking peeks through the slots of wood ( _spying on the enemy_ ), practicing his sword-swinging amid the low branches ( _preparing for battle_ ), and, finally scouting along the edge of the entire garden, glancing now and then as Gilbert continued to pay attention to his book and not to him ( _surveying the terrain_ ).

Finally, as the sun dipped toward the horizon, Elliot couldn’t stand it any longer: “I’m ignoring you, y'know,” he proclaimed beside Gilbert, knocking his book away with a clumsy swing of the wooden blade, “I’m not suppose to talk to you because big brother said so, so you better not talk to me because you’re not one of us and, and I’m a real Nightray and-and….” ( _Triumph!_ he thought proudly, but still felt a twinge of annoyance when Gilbert picked up the book and suddenly Elliot noticed the illustrated jousting across the pages and ended, timidly, “Y-you like knights too?”)  


	143. Chapter 143

Dormouse & Elliot

***

Out of all of the Chains one could get, Elliot could not understand why someone would contract such a useless-looking one.

He thought of the Chains he had seen in the past: Master Break’s Mad Hatter, a being as superior as his swordsmanship was; the cackling hooked-beak grin of the Gryphon, glimpsed only once in the forests of the Pandora estate during a public demonstration by his family’s arch-nemesis; and even the burning arctic flame and flapping wings of the Nightray’s Raven, a vision only known through nightmares that haunted his nights as a boy.

This stuffed rodent didn’t appear mighty nor crafty nor terrifying…and yet, despite its benign appearance by Vincent’s side, the Dormouse gave Elliot a chill deep in his bones; as if sniffing his discomfort, the creature tilted its head in unison with its master’s as the blond man asked, casually, “Something the matter, Elliot?”  


	144. Chapter 144

Elliot, Popsicle

***

Iced desserts symbolized noble decadence, and thus, Elliot steadfastly avoided them when Leo was first taken into the household. He told himself that he did so because even the enjoyment of the cold treat was a sign of status; pinpricks of guilt had nipped at him that sweltering afternoon in June as the cook passed these out to the family as they lounged on the lawn, but avoided handing one to Leo.

He handed his popsicle to Leo, muttering, “These are always too sugary for me,” and slowly, his feelings of self-conscious privilege transformed into other desirous ones as he watched the young man enjoy the dripping popsicle with eager lips and swirling tongue…  

 


	145. Chapter 145

Elliot & Leo

***

 _I’m an idiot,_ Elliot thought, regret staying his hand as it hovered over Leo’s shut door until he slammed his fist against the wood in frustration; another fight had flared between them, and Leo, all thorny rage, had overturned a table rather than admit to the root of his distress after their latest visit to the orphanage.

“It’s none of your business!” Leo had snapped, to which Elliot retorted, without thinking, “Of course it is, because you’re mine!”

Shades of red spread across Leo’s face, before he gave a final kick to the underside of the table and stormed to his servant’s quarters; now, Elliot stood before his friend’s room, berating himself because his acted like a pigheaded noble and not as Leo’s equal (but the declaration thundered inside his head in time with his racing heart, _“You’re mine, you’re mine, Leo, mine, mine, mine.”_ )


	146. Chapter 146

Elliot/Oz

***

Oz was the most straightforward person Elliot had ever known, besides Leo; but despite his sunny disposition, annoying inquisitiveness, and casual ease that Elliot confirmed to be genuine, Oz also contained another, more distant Oz – but one that showed himself as plainly as his opposite’s smile - a quieter Oz that carried a layered resignation that could easily be mistaken for passive contentedness.

That complex emotion of Oz’s maddened Elliot, moreso because Oz attempted to hide it; Elliot wanted to beat this acceptance of worthlessness out of Oz; he wanted to yell and scream some sense into him and he never resisted an opportunity to do so, ever since that day in the tunnels of Lutwidge.

Did Oz understand this passion, he wondered, as he held the boy tighter to his chest; did Oz recognize how hard Elliot wished to burn away that layer of sadness that coated Oz’s smile?


	147. Chapter 147

Elliot & Vincent

***

 _No one eats supper together anymore_ , Elliot thought sourly, picking at the plate; his first night home for the summer break and the only ones to greet him and Leo were the servants and Vincent.

Reasons why this was so were clear enough: his parents had grown even more distant over time, his father constantly doing business at Pandora or making the political dealings in court with the other high nobles and lower royalty, while his mother devoted herself to that slick-backed foreign mystic Yura in a way that made Elliot clench his teeth in anger; Vanessa seemed moody and uncommunicative for months, snapping at Elliot any chance she got for no apparent reason, and would go out, unescorted, for hours….

Then there was Vincent, smiling serenely across from him and asking how his final exams had gone and apologizing for Gilbert’s absence (though Elliot hadn’t expected Gilbert to return home again, that coward); Elliot accepted the basket of offered rolls from his foster brother, giving a begrudging smile in return; for out of everyone, at least Vincent always made a point to remember that family still mattered.  


	148. Chapter 148

Elliot/Ada

***

The kitten found Elliot first, dashing into the common room as a chord of thunder rumbled outside, making the windowpanes rattle. Immediately, he scooped up the tabby-colored ball of fur, wondering where the little creature came from, until he glanced outside to the walkway below to see a long-legged figure dash between the raindrops.

“You found him!” Ada exclaimed when Elliot met her in the overhang of the dormitory building with the kitten curled into a shivering, poor thing against his chest, and when she took the small animal out of his arms, Elliot felt a strange flutter in his chest, as if he, too, had been found.  


	149. Chapter 149

Elliot and Vanessa: sibling pranks

***

The incidents escalated quickly, as things often did between Vanessa and her younger brother: a stolen slice of cake meant for him at teatime, an unflattering stain showing up on the rear of her skirts, his entire set of underpants hung on display in front of the estate balcony, her favorite horse dyed pink and blue before the annual races, and finally, on the morning the Nightray family arranged for their portrait to be taken–

“Elly, why do you look so surprised?” Vanessa inquired daintily as she passed his rooms on her way to the front foyer.

“Shaddup,” Elliot muttered as the maids fussed with cosmetics and his mother nearly fainted upon seeing her youngest minus his eyebrows; Vanessa remained grounded in her rooms and forced to work on nothing but her embroidery for a month as a result, but she thought it was worth it for what poor Dominion had to go through.  


	150. Chapter 150

Elliot, Break & Sharon

***

Elliot would rather not have a woman act as Master Break’s second, but Gilbert had absolutely refused to go along with his latest challenge against the white-haired swordsman (“Elliot, he cannot be trusted to act honorably,” was his tight-lipped response), and Elliot had to surprise Break after a major Pandora meeting in order to corner him into the duel.

Lady Sharon didn’t even _act_ like a proper second, sitting there at the side table with a cup of Darjeeling in one hand, fan in the other and a subtle smile on her lips (“I already inspected the weapons and see no need to be in my manservant’s way,” was her excuse.)

Elliot took his position, determined that his twelfth challenge would be his last, but as soon as Leo waved the handkerchief to start, there was a swift _whooshing_ sound, a purple-and-white blur, and then— _whump!_ as Elliot glance backwards to see the rosebushes rushing up to meet him (at least Lady Sharon had the kindness to offer him a consolatory cup and a cookie once she removed the twigs from his hair).


	151. Chapter 151

Elliot on Echo

***

Elliot didn’t like to think of Leo as his manservant, but as his friend, yet also understood the obligation of having a personal servant as a Nightray for appearance’s sake; the arrival of that quiet girl for Vincent surprised him nonetheless (he had thought that his foster brothers refused – or perhaps, weren’t allowed – to have attendants of their own, having gone for so long without anyone).

Still, he took the single carpet bag from the girl’s clenched hands and good-naturedly said, “Hey, I’m Elliot, let me carry that up-”

The speed of her recoil and the single hand raised – defensively – caught him off-guard, as did her monotone reply, “Young Master Elliot should not bother to help this one, for Master Vincent would get angry,” which confused him, since he had never seen Vincent _angry_ before; down the hall he watched Vincent grip Echo’s arm and lead her away, and a strange misgiving stirred in the back of his mind as the pair disappeared into the shadows.


	152. Chapter 152

Vincent, anxiety

***

It never starts with a feeling, but a _thought_ , fleeting but insidious – _“does he mean that?”_ – and suddenly, Vincent isn’t sure (but he has to be, _Gilbert said that he was glad Vincent was there_ , that’s what he said) but the thought surfaces again ( _no, he doesn’t mean that_ ) and he tries to fight that voice, that slick-tongued snide of a voice ( _why would Gil ever mean that?_ ) and Vincent looks to Gilbert, standing in the rain and knows his brother lost his mind, and he can’t mean that ( _because why would he ever love you_ ) and the thought grows and grows, and all Vincent can think of is that time Gilbert got hurt defending him from those rich bullies and that time Vincent stood naked in the circus ring and everyone laughed and that time that Gilbert told him that he wasn’t worthless, he was his brother, but they were both so cold and hungry and it was Vincent’s fault they had no home and no mother and nothing to eat—

His stiffened fingers grip the wet grass as these thoughts hit him over and over but he feels nothing now, absolutely nothing except the slight lightheadedness that comes with these episodes – of vertigo and weightlessness – and he feels dread leech everything out of his stomach and his fingers grip for the silver scissors but find nothing but wet leaves of grass on his gloves and the mud and those thoughts ( _“are you sure? are you sure? are you sure?”)_ and Vincent hates it, he absolutely hates it because he knows that these thoughts are always happening and should be meaningless, but they won’t leave and his stomach drops from underneath him as Gilbert leans down with an outstretched hand (his _only_ hand and oh gods, this was all Vincent’s fault even though Gilbert said he was so glad because _“are you sure?” “are you sure?”_ ) and nothing seems to make sense anymore, nothing, nothing—

The wave of anxiety is a rising tide and he can’t breathe and his limbs move like stones because they are so tense and his mind is a blank except for the thump-thump, thump-thump of his heart and then comes a smooth hiss of invisible force on steel bars (off with his head! _“are you sure?” “are you sure?”_ ) and the metal clatters to the ground and the sound echoes and is so far away and Vincent has his fist raised and there is Break, grimacing, and there is his fist and down goes the fist and again and again until Vincent realizes that he is angry, he is furious and that is the only thing that drives all of these flitting thoughts away from his frenzied mind….


	153. Chapter 153

Vincent, chess

***

“Checkmate.”

Vincent leans back, tapping his fingers in an impatient rhythm, as Ada does the opposite – huddling over the chess pieces over the board and giving a tiny little frown, letting a dissatisfied pink tip of a tongue work out between her lips (not that Vincent is noticing her lips, mind you, he honestly wanted her gone hours ago, but she had been so stubborn, demanding that he share his secret self too, and he had thought, “Why not do a quick round and get this all over with…”)

But their game wasn’t quick, and Vincent feels so annoyed that he had wasted half a day with her; she sighs, huffing a puff of air through her blond fringe and somehow, seeing that look of endearing exasperation on her face makes him sweep a hand across the table, knocking over both king and queen– and yet instead of snapping in her face, he finds himself laughing gently and asking, “Do you want another go?”


	154. Chapter 154

Vincent, cake

***

Vincent never asks for anything on his birthday, but appearances have to be made and the party is the most lavish one yet because it is after his coming of age ceremony, and the Nightrays had to show the nobility how he and Gilbert were cherished (and official) members of the household (though he caught Ernest spitting into his champagne glass before handing it over for the birthday toast, and he noticed how Claude did not stop him and how Fred and Vanessa looked away).

Vincent pretends to take a sip, then passes the glass back to a servant (“It’s too warm”), and such is the game he plays with his loving foster family until the end of the night, when Vincent is restless and wounded because Gilbert only briefly appeared early that evening to hand him a midnight feather and wish him well upon his Society debut before he vanished (but of course, big brother hates these events) but Vincent slips into his rooms to find a pale glow in front of his chaise lounge.

On the low tea table sits a layered pound cake, dripping with warm chocolate frosting and topped by sixteen candles, and there Gilbert is smiling sheepishly and running a hand self-consciously through his hair, the apology half-way out his mouth (“Sorry this took so long; I never tried this recipe before but I know you liked simple things so…”) before Vincent stops his words with a touch of Gilbert’s gifted feather on the older sibling’s lips and murmurs, “I’m so very grateful for Gil’s thoughtful present.”


	155. Chapter 155

Vincent, dog

***

“Good boy,” comes the whisper and instinctively, Vincent’s cock reacts and he lowers his head, letting his blond hair hide the flush across his cheeks as he feels the leather strap rub against his bare arse.

He doesn’t look up, because obedient dogs always obey their masters and Vincent will always follow what Gilbert commands, but he cannot resist the moan that escapes his lips as his older brother trails his fingertips across the hollow of his back toward the curve of his lower cheeks; Vincent’s arousal tightens more, because he never thought Gilbert would be this way, yet everything’s changed since his memories returned and Gilbert fully embraced everything he had denied himself (and so had Vincent, oh yes, indeed).

A whiff of musk and his collar was yanked with Gilbert’s remaining arm, jerking Vincent’s face toward Gil’s spread legs and he sees the curve of a wicked grin forming as Gilbert notes, “Vin makes such a cute little pup, doesn’t he?” 


	156. Chapter 156

Vincent, Pokemon

***

Vincent held the rose to his lips as the Team Rocket cheer ended, peering across the forest clearing at the short blond with the baseball cap standing beside his brother; he’d never understand how it came to this, Gil siding with some kid and that annoying Alice (and where had she come from? Vincent hadn’t seen her since his early trainer days) instead of joining him and Lottie in the global organization.

A rueful grin as their frozen pose ended and he held the smooth pokeball that he held behind him like a pitcher at the mound: “Demios, I choose you!!”  
  
But to his utmost surprise, instead of opening their attack, the boy gestured with a hand, sending a looping, spear-headed chain out of nowhere; “Oz, bloody black rabbit attack—” Alice shouted in return and Demios roared as the metal whipped through bone and bristle. 


	157. Chapter 157

Vincent, Rapture

***

Fingers edge along the sensitive skin on the sides of his torso, barely brushing, delicate strokes that tickled his flesh and make tingling sensations radiate, and he twitches, below, biting his lower lip and shutting his eyes as the whisper brushes against his ear: “This is how I want you, this is how I’ll love you….” in a deep voice that is their secret, a sultry tone with a hint of a growl that he never pulls on anyone else except for Vincent.

Hot hands pull down below and Vincent tilts his head back, a cry, wordless cry escaping lips that is immediately covered by a pillow to muffle the sound (“You’re so loud,” comes the voice again, taunting) and Vincent bites deeply, tasting cotton and bodily musk and sweat between his teeth as he shifts his hips back, harder and faster in his need.

 _Please, please, please, I need you, I need you now,_  echoes the thought and Vincent wills his very being as those hands, those lips, that heavy body and aching heat presses against him from behind and he moans through the fabric, clutching the tangled sheets wrapped around his naked body as he thrusts against his lover’s hands and as the wet dream ends, a final rapture overcomes him before those brief moments of bliss die away, leaving him hollow and empty as the blond man curls up on the bed, a sob catching in his throat. 


	158. Chapter 158

Oz, head pets

***

Oz craved touch as a small child: asking to be picked up, to have horseback rides, to be tossed high in the air and caught by a pair of waiting arms, to grab hands and grip fingers unexpectedly, demanding the servant staff or Lord Oscar or Ada (and, so long ago, the Lady Vessalius) hugs or else he’d head-butt them in toddler retaliation. 

Despite all of this, he hated to have the top of his head touched; he’d recoil with a cry if he even suspected someone reaching toward the crown of his head (another reaction, generations long-buried in the hind of his animal brain: of a clever-eyed girl and, oh that hurt, the hard tugging of his ears as she spun him round the tower room!)  
  
Only years later, on the off-chance, someone brushed the fringe from his eyes and gave a gentle head-pet (tap-tap-tap) of gloved fingers; Oz, pleasantly surprised, glanced upwards as Gilbert descended the dusty stairwell.


	159. Chapter 159

Oz, ribbons

***

It itched, it itched, it _itched_ —but at that moment, Oz had no clear understanding of how to explain his situation and he struggled internally, anxiety growing as he stared up at her.

He only wanted to please her after all, and if she wanted him like this, there couldn’t be anything that he would deny his sweet and frightening mistress — he could tremble if he were able to, thinking of the ways she played with him and how this humiliating ribbon ‘round his neck would only make things _worse_ —-

“Hmmmm,” Alice gave a little frown and she removed the pink tie around the plushie’s neck, replacing it with a white one (oh, _silk_! So much better than that starched terror!), “I think this one makes you look handsomer, right Oz?”


	160. Chapter 160

Oz, voice

***

When Oz dreams, he wonders whether they are his own, if that second souls inside — Jack’s presence, sticking to him like a second skin — has been whispering thoughts and leaking memories into his subconscious (he knew a little about the new psychology, growing up in this modern era reading Zai Vessalius’ old medical texts).

Even after all of this had ended, he finds pieces of Jack lodged inside his brain like shrapnel, and it hurts to remove those poisonous thoughts that he had believed wasn’t really part of him, but parts of a past leeched into this alien body he resides in.

The only dreams he never regrets, never questions having is that soft melodious voice, singing on a summer’s day in a blooming garden, and those gentle red eyes settle upon his face, and her final whisper, “Promise me you’ll watch over them, promise me.” 


	161. Chapter 161

Oz, chocolate

***

“You don’t _like_ chocolate?”

Oz’s jaw dropped and the piece he held remained halfway between the plate and his mouth as he saw Elliot roll his eyes and sip from his sweating glass of lemonade as he shifted in his seat beneath the tree; Oz couldn’t believe this, because all people liked chocolate, and what kind of person _didn’t_?  
  
“I don’t like the taste much,” Elliot had scowled, “Why does everyone react this way when I tell them?” before Leo popped his head from around the tree trunk and snapped, “Elliot’s just _that vanilla_!” and then Oz dropped his candy entirely as Elliot flushed beet-red and Leo skipped away toward the others at the picnic table spread, cackling.


	162. Chapter 162

Oz, shy

***

“She’s a shy one,” was often the response made by grown-ups toward Ada as she clung to Oz’s waistcoat, peering around him with wide green eyes; and whenever this happened, Oz would laugh and, in a sweeping move that only worked because Ada was barely five and Oz so much older and taller than her, even at his young age, he’d pick her up and present her like his favorite doll.

“Ada’s not shy!” he’d proclaim, as Ada squealed and buried her face in his chest, “She just doesn’t like looking up at people bigger than me and Uncle Oscar!”

That much was true, little Ada had realized, throwing her arms around his big brother’s neck; she wanted to remain right there, knowing that Oz will always be her big brother and always be there to protect her from these grown-ups towering over them; years later, when she was the one who stood over Oz’s head, Ada Vessalius couldn’t help but throw her arms around Oz’s neck once again and feel that familiar ring of safety close around them both. 


	163. Chapter 163

Oz, teacups

***

Oz avoided returning to the Vessalius manor for so long after his return from the Abyss because he was afraid; an illogical fear of course – that he’d return and there his father would be, looming in the doorway, a scowl on his scarred face and that Gryphon there, wings spread and preventing him from crossing the threshold of his childhood home.

Lord Zai was not there when Oz came back that day, but so many other welcome faces were: Uncle Oscar and old Cook and the head butler and the crotchety groundskeeper and even Miss Kate stopped in for a visit, though she had left the family’s employment when Ada was sent off to Lutwidge Academy (a bit grayer, but just as stern as she pinched the boy’s cheeks with tears in her eyes).

That evening, Oz stepped into his old study, where he had spent so many hours reading books and trying to learn about the world, and there was Gilbert and the tea service they had used; handing over a teacup, his manservant gave a sheepish smile and asked, quietly, “You still take yours with two sugars, young master?”


	164. Chapter 164

Oz, gorgeous

***

Oz – just Oz, only Oz – realized many things about himself and how he viewed the world; for so long, he felt unsure about how it worked and where he place was inside of it.

That changed and it had been such a struggle made possible because of the connections he made: his constant Gilbert and lovable Ada and the genuine Uncle Oscar from the rocky start, and then new people who breached the walls of his closed-off world – insightful and warmhearted Sharon; Break that unsettling clown with the heart of gold; the studious and considerate Reim; Echo, that poor child whom Oz wanted to succeed somehow so badly it hurt inside; stubborn and courageous Elliot; and Alice, always there, always his sun, always the devil and the saint and the innocent rolled into one, being there for him as he had been for her.

And in these last moments, looking back as his strange and twisted fairy tale unfolded, Oz could only think of a few words to describe this life he led– it was sparks in the darkness, it was _gorgeous_ , and ultimately, it was _his_.


	165. Chapter 165

Oz, family

***

The ancient and respected Lord Philippe West was not always a marquis; once, his minor noble family had made some terrible investments into certain magical technologies and they had lost everything; he remembered living in the slums, hovering over candle stubs and chewing stale bread and insipid soup as he waited for his father to return with “better prospects.”

One evening, his father never returned with those prospects.

His memory of the months after were fuzzy at best; Philippe remembered an orphanage, ghost-whispers over the telephone; one terrible night of Baskervilles and monsters and that haunting giggle in his ears and that pain pulling his chest before… nothing….until he awoke in a country clinic with kindly nurses and a vellum, wax-sealed letter from Lord Oz Vessalius, awarding him his father’s lost title and congratulating him on restoring his house’s lineage; Lord West never had a chance to thank the noble in person, but from then on considered Oz to be part of his restored family, that benevolent, distant relative that he told his children and his children’s children all about for years to come.


	166. Chapter 166

AU Prompt, Oz & Alice, reincarnated 100 years later

***

The road trip had been her idea after all; her greatest wish was to leave that dull provincial village and taste the finest foods in quaint roadside cafés all across the country, and so the year they graduated the Academy, he sold his fancy clothes and schoolbooks and she sold her artisan rag dolls and wool-knit scarves and they bought a motorcar together.

Summer rays beat down upon their burnt shoulders (she wore sunscreen but apparently not enough), and the tip of her sunglasses hung from the corner of her mouth (she had a habit of chewing the ends of anything) as she leaned over the metal barrier and peered into the chasm beyond.

He wrapped his arm around her waist and sipped from the iced tea he bought from the vendor on the road, wondering why out of all tourist destinations they ended up here and he whispered, “It feels haunted still, doesn’t it?” and she replied, lowly, “I guess anyone who visits feels a bit sad, right?” and they lit candles at the ancient memorial and bought postcards at the gift shop before leaving the Abyss Canyon behind.


	167. Chapter 167

Jack and Lacie in a coffee shop au

***

he always ordered a grande caramel macciato with half-whip and extra caramel (which defeated the point of the half-whip, but Jack never judged); even if he was in the back room cleaning the dishes, he could always tell when she entered the shop by the way she would greet all the barristas on shift by name (she knew everyone’s), singing their names as if they were the newest tune that she just picked up from the radio, “Hullo, hullo and how are you today, Lottie?” (or Doug or Fang or Echo).

That was how they worked for the last two years: her waltzing in and sitting on her special chair in the corner with her laptop and a pair of giant noise-canceling headphones and bluetooth keyboard (actually piano keys here, electronically transfigured), composing to herself and humming snatches of her compositions; “I make jingles for a living,” she laughed, when asked, which was why she could afford to living in this upscale neighborhood and spend hours sitting there and on his breaks Jack would perch by her side and look over at the dancing notes on her screen.

Then, one day, Lacie didn’t come to the coffee shop and didn’t return for months; concerned, Jack searched for her and then one Sunday afternoon he showed up at her studio apartment with a bouquet of flowers and a cup of her usual in his hands; Lacie opened the door and she was so much thinner and paler than he remembered and the look in her eyes said it all, but instead of crying, Jack smiled his brightest and sang in a soft tenor, “Lacie Baskerville, hullo, hullo, hullo…”


	168. Chapter 168

Ozbert and an au where one of them works in a flower shop

***

The bodega was the only one in the neighborhood that sold flowers and the brightest spot on the corner in this gentrifying former industrial wasteland; Oz would pass the corner store on his way to the subway every morning and notice the lanky, tousled-haired man spraying a shower of water from a hose over the bunches of roses and lilies and tulips (“One Dozen Only $10” screamed the sign over his head), and Oz couldn’t help but smile at himself at the sight of the stranger’s lit cigarette in his mouth, tipping ashes onto the blooms while he also carefully directed the stream away from himself to protect his precious smoke.

Oz loved flowers, but never thought to buy any for himself, since that would make his flat seem all the more lonely to him – flowers were meant to be given as gifts and received as such, and he never had anyone desire to give him flowers before.

One evening after a particularly cruel day at the office, Oz slipped into the bodega on the way home for a six-pack and on a whim, picked up a bunch of roses; “Looks like a special date,” joked that same young man from behind the counter as he accepted the money and dropped change into Oz’s hand; immediately, he flushed and shoved both items back toward him, “You mean our date, right? Hi, I’m Oz,” and then it was the other’s turn to blush and he stuttered, dropping his half-lit cigarette from those (quite lovely) lips, “Oh, well, hi, um, I’m Gilbert. Nice to meet you.”


	169. Chapter 169

Vincent x Gilbert; Attack on Titan

***

Orphans made the best recruits, and there were more and more of them in the passing years since Wall Maria fell five years before; these two were from the very village where the Colossal Titan broke through, and Gilbert felt the whispers that followed them wherever they went after they graduated as part of the 103rd Trainee Squad: the comparisons between him and Vincent to those other younger survivors that had become shining stars of the Scouting Legion; Gilbert never met that trio at all, and didn’t care to, especially when all that mattered to him was survival and keeping their secrets safe.

Still, one day when a diminutive blond woman from 104th arrived at the Military Police Barracks, Gilbert couldn’t help but be a bit curious, especially when he sighted Annie Leonhart outside a tavern late one night with Vincent, both of them leaning against the boards and watching the drunks stumble out while on patrol; “She thinks these nobles here are scum too,” Vincent told him afterward, while cleaning his 3D maneuver gear for the weekly inspection, “And apparently this Eren Jaeger fellow is a respectable guy.”

Gil never suspected the truth, though, when it exploded that very day inside the Walls and their comrade-in-arms revealed herself to be a traitor to humanity; the first thing that Gilbert thought upon seeing her Titan form emerge in the street was, “Lord Oz!” but before he could rush to his townhouse, a heavy weight fell against his skull and Gilbert saw blackness; once he awoke beyond the Wall, he paled and felt his stomach drop upon seeing two men before him as they introduced themselves as Reiner and Bertolt while Vincent whispered in his ear, “It’s always been us against the rest of humanity, hasn’t it, big brother?”


	170. Chapter 170

(for Lacie) Mother

***

Parentage was never a big question in Lacie’s mind growing up, particularly because she never realized how her upbringing was unusual compared to the standards society placed on families; instead of one father, she had Papa Glen and Daddy Fang and Uncle Doug and she hadn’t had a mother but Big Sister Lottie and Lil Sissy Celia and that mysterious old Granny Juri that no one really bothered or talked to unless it was Very Important.

No one talked about their pasts in the Baskerville household, and so Lacie assumed that they all never had real families or pasts worth talking about until they came to be a Baskerville, and since she and Oswald were born Baskervilles (practically– Oswald never mentioned anything about life before the Baskerville manor and Lacie couldn’t recall), the question of who her mother actually was didn’t become pressing until she was much older and the promise she made to Glen began to weigh down on her shoulders.

“Do you wish to know?” Glen asked once as they dined together, “There are records. I can always–” but Lacie pressed a finger to his lips and murmured, “What good is knowing now? She’s probably dead or alive somewhere; either way, my life was a mere footnote in hers,” and a quick smile masked the twinge of regret – one she so rarely had nowadays – “The Abyss is my true mother after all, and I’ll return to her in the end.”


	171. Chapter 171

Lacie Birthday prompt, “her trousseau”

***

Lacie spent a lot of her final months in her tower room; naturally, no one bothered her when she was in one of those moods, so toxic and thick that it threatened to choke anyone who came within earshot (or arm’s throw): the screaming, the tantrums, the breathy vindictive side comments that everyone except Oswald and Glen always took immediate offense to (Oswald because they usually went over his head, and Glen because he was always the most patient one in the household when it came to Lacie’s bad moods).

When she emerged from that final hermit act of her life, Lacie announced that she had been working on her trousseau; everyone thought she had been joking at the time because for one thing, she wasn’t about to be married and had no use for making a bunch of clothes for family life, and secondly, because she never showed her handiwork to anyone, despite bragging about all of the embroidered baby clothes and hankies she had worked on.

Only Glen saw her trousseau, a few days before her death, when Lacie pulled him aside and told him, “When the baby comes, be sure that they wear this for me,” and Glen was secretly disappointed when Alice emerged from the Abyss weeks later, a youthful and grown girl long past her babyhood; he made sure, however, that all of the baby clothes Lacie had sewn for her child was placed in her room with all of Lacie’s old toys, and happily, Alice spent hours playing dress up with her dolls and outfitted them all in satin and lace and silk (including her favorite toy bunny Oz in a red and white blouse with the bow…)


	172. Chapter 172

Oz hates to realize that he likes the "level" he's above Jack now.

(Not sure what you mean by “level” so hope you don’t mind this spin…..)

***

Oz senses the presence long before he actually feels Jack’s words vibrate in the back of his mind; the sensation is akin to witnessing something foul and disgusting suddenly floating upwards toward his consciousness, like how drowned bodies buoy toward a river’s surface.

That foulness clutches at Oz, assaulting his inner world with a mental stench so repugnant that his very physical breath constricts in his lungs.

Despite it all – the hairs on the back of his neck stiffening, the gooseflesh raising up his arms, the sense of frost slowly reaching across his warm, still living chest – Oz knows that he is better than Jack in so many ways and that the ghost’s eager clutches is a weak fog that fades right before the dawn, and, as Jack’s fingers stroke along his Adam’s apple, Oz lets his eyes shut, defiant in his submission (“ _Your touch means nothing, Jack, because you are less than nothing…_ ”)  


	173. Chapter 173

Jack/Oz 

***

The need to touch Oz was always there for as long as _this_ iteration of Jack remembered, ever since the child clicked a dead man’s locket open and he became aware once more, and Jack could not resist that draw to life and flesh ( but was he _really_ Jack anymore at this point, or a mere echo of a memory from a lost soul, a fragment of fragment that was destined to become nothing….?)

Jack knew at some point that he had existed once in this youth’s body that he held and stroked and yes, those tiny sounds Oz made, Jack had made those sounds too, once…

Yet all true memories of love and desire and want had been left behind from the degradation of his spirit through the decades: this was the terrible secret that _this_ Jack knew and hated knowing; that his existence was not _really_ Jack at all, but a reflection of a man named Jack, a formation sprung from Alice’s dead memories… ( _no, stop this, he was real, he was real, he was real–!_ ), and Oz trembled as Jack told him he was nothing, that Jack owned that weak human body, and this shadow-beast-Jack-not-Jack thought: “ _Yes, I am real because you fear me.”_


	174. Chapter 174

Oz/Jack

***

A touch (“Let me take control,” the elder soul commanded), and Oz felt a quickening inside that seemed to be carried away by Jack’s easy-going smile as the boy receded into the background of his mind and let Jack stride forward, taking command of his slight body before the whole of Pandora to announce that the great Hero of Sablier walked among them.

Twinge of dis-ease passed through Oz over the fluidity of Jack’s motions but he quickly dismissed them ( _how confident! how self-assured! how noble!_ Oz thought to himself about that man who claimed to be his ancestor).

Afterward, Jack rested his hands on Oz inside his mind and whispered, “Let me show you how it is done,” and, overwhelmed, Oz let himself sink into the older man’s arms, confused and flushed, but he could not escape his own mind, and Jack’s words and his caresses so soothing as were the hushed words, “Don’t you fret, everything will be back to the way it was…”


	175. Chapter 175

Jack, games

***

Jack’s time at the Baskerville estate felt like a series of games that he wasn’t always positive he knew the rules for: he could only see Lacie at so-and-so times and places (as long as he didn’t run into the Lottie woman first); Oswald could be reached, perhaps, if Jack stopped by later in the evening for his piano recital; but why did Lord Glen pop up when Jack least expected it, and why did that man have an uncanny ability of making him sweat?

Nonetheless, Jack view the world through the prism of love, fracturing plain light into vibrant colors by the feelings in his soul; he’d obey any rule, submit to any request, as long as there came the moment where he and Lacie would be together and he would be able to bask in her beatific glow…

Only when the final endgame reveal the ugly truth ( _Impossible! Impossible! Impossible!_ ) did Jack threw up all the pieces into the air and decided that the time to cheat had come again.


	176. Chapter 176

Break/Sharon/Reim polygamy

***

“Why would you want me?” was the first question that came out of his mouth; surprising, since that expressed self-doubt and uncertainty, two things that Xerxes Break rarely showed to anyone, even those closest to him.

“Because we love you,” came the answer, and it was Reim who said it, not Sharon, and so Break’s eyes darted to her and saw the confirmation within her gaze and felt the soft heat of her palm as her hand slipped into his while Reim took his opposite one; together, they sat in stillness across from each other in the parlour room, as if they were holding a séance between them and not weighing a proposal about love.

It didn’t make sense to Break at all ( _he was dying, it’d only be trouble in the long run, Sharon and Reim were of higher nobility, they could have a happy married life without him, what would Lady Sheryl think-?_ ) but instead, the taunt came next (“Lady Sharon, if you had wanted a spare, you could have been with me first,”) and it hurt to say it, and Break immediately regretted it—until he got slapped hard by the young woman’s fan as she retorted with a laugh:  “And because we’re the only ones who can tolerate you, idiot!”


	177. Chapter 177

Sharon and Alice discovering that Alice can Dance.

***

Sharon spent the majority of the days leading up to Oz’s second coming of age ceremony making sure that Alice would be just as presentable as the ceremony’s own honored personage, but it had been a series of unexpected minor disasters: the cutlery etiquette was reduced to making sure Alice didn’t eat with only the sharpest knife and her hands; getting her ears pierced as a mark of her own adulthood (a passable lie of course) left the head maid in terrors after Alice tried stabbing her with the needle instead; dress shopping left too many openings for Alice to wander out of the shop and to the nearest food vendor (which she promptly sampled the wares of and didn’t bother paying).

“Alice, are you sure you’re up for this?” Sharon asked again after a long, thankless day around the city, as they rested in the Rainsworth manor, where the head butler had already set up the phonograph for waltzing.

As the first chords began to unspool from the machine, Alice took Sharon’s hands with surprising delicacy – “I know this part by heart,” she said as she twirled the young noble around the room, much to her amazement, and though Alice was leading the dance, Sharon found that she did not mind this at all.    


	178. Chapter 178

sweet (Break and Reim)

***

“Your teeth will rot right out of your head, y’know?” Reim commented dryly from across the tea table as Break finished off his third serving of triple-layered chocolate gateau; normally, he never criticized Break’s dietary habits except for these midday teas that seemed to take longer than necessary, and usually resulted in Break clocking out on-time from Pandora while Reim remained late to finish up his paperwork.  
  
“You’d have a sunnier disposition like mine if you ate more sweets,” Break countered, finishing off the last bite and taking a sip of his sugar-filled cup of tea.

Reim exhaled in a huff between his teeth and rose from his place at the table, before he felt a hand grab his wrist; upon turning, he was about to make a retort but was stopped by his superior’s mouth against his and the trickle of melted chocolate slipping onto his tongue: “See? Don’t you feel better already?” Break chortled, when he pulled away from Reim’s blushing face. 


	179. Chapter 179

Break/Sharon/Reim bonds

***

Break noticed a humming throughout the world ever since he had gone blind; even now in the middle of the night in bed beside the two lovers that he cherished the most, he lay awake and felt some strange current run through the atmosphere ring at the edge of hearing.

“You too?” Sharon murmured, turning her face to him through half-lidded eyes (how adorable he imagined her looking, with Reim’s arm thrown across her waist as she spooned against Break’s side!)

“The chains holding together the world,” he muttered and as he wondered how true that idea was, the nagging thought entered his mind, one that remained since he had recovered from his stay in the dungeon and noticed the bright lights floating behind his eyelids; unconsciously, Sharon held Break tighter and he knew that some bonds would never sever.


	180. Chapter 180

Sharon+Echo - Trying to teach Echo about love and romance

***

Echo scribbled down everything Sharon was saying in a way that was almost unnerving, and when she asked Echo what she was doing, the girl replied stiffly, “Echo must be sure to remember all the details.”

 _This was better than Alice, I suppose_ , Sharon thought, thinking of how the black-haired girl would have bounced around the room and demanded whether those books tasted good and whether that was why Sharon loved romance novels so much.

When Sharon peeked over Echo’s shoulder to see exactly what she was noting, however, her cheeks colored in surprise to find many more hearts drawn than she expected, and the names “Princess Sharon” and “Prince Echo” filled in the synopsis instead of the character names from the book.


	181. Chapter 181

Reim/Break/Sharon, skin

***

Reim always had a poetic eye for detail and it was he who whispered to Break as he held him from behind while Sharon disrobed before them, describing exactly how her skin glowed in the flickering firelight, how her eyes glistened in that mischievous way of hers, how pert her breasts were and the way they bounced as she slipped out of the pile of silks on the floor and approached the bed.

Break said not a word, which in any other circumstance was most unusual, but that was probably because Reim had his hands down his trousers and was slowly unbuttoning the front of them.

Then it was Sharon’s turn as Reim lowered himself backwards on the bedsheets, dragging Break on top of him as she straddled Break’s hips to effectively trap the white-haired man between them; she purred in soft tones how Reim’s hair made a dark halo on the bed, and the way he shut his eyes in bliss, and _oh sweet fool, can’t you feel the way his hands are crawling along your sides and don’t you love the way I’m dragging my fingernails across your chest?_


	182. Chapter 182

Break & Gilbert. Cheesecake.

***

After witnessing how disastrous Break’s eating habits were once Gilbert entered into Pandora, the Nightray became determined to make his superior eat “better” even if that “better” only meant fruit crisp instead of fruit pies (they were fresher) or chocolate mousse instead of cake (less carbs).

He drew the line, however, when it came to the marbled raspberry and currant cheesecake and replaced that with a sensible slide of plain custard instead.

“But, Gilbert-kun, it has fruit! And dairy! You approve of those food groups!” Break protested as Gilbert whisked the decadence off the table to return to Pandora’s kitchens; that was the moment, however, for Emily to unexpectedly pop into view and by some puppet miracle, she cackled, _“Don’t you dare take the cheesecake, boy!”_ in a way that petrified the youth and made him drop the plate…which was deftly caught by Break (“Nice save, Emily!”)


	183. Chapter 183

Liam/Sharon first kiss

***

Oddly enough, Lady Sharon had no brothers nor male cousins in the household, and so the only man of proper rank and age with her in the manor was young Liam (as a person with too many brothers/cousins/male relations of all types, the overflow of estrogen in one household was quite a jarring change.)

Lady Sharon was especially fascinated by all the aspects of his life that she had never witnessed performed by any other man in her presence; “Can I watch you shave?” she had asked once, and then came other things, like comparing how both of them walked or spoke or preferred their tea, and Liam soon realized that he had to make an important distinction to the teenager.

“I don’t represent the entirely of the male gender,” he explained to her patiently as they sat together in the shade of the Rainsworth garden, “You can’t expect everything I do to be exactly like every other man,” and that was when Lady Sharon leaned forward and planted a kiss on his lips; he gasped and flailed his arms a bit, not knowing what to do with them, before she released him with a small smile: “I suppose that reaction can be uniquely attributed to you, then.”


	184. Chapter 184

Reim/Sharon/Break + necklace

***

The bauble was of a tiny horse – black porcelain and painted accents of silver on a chain as fine as spidersilk – and Break recalled seeing that around Lady Shelly’s slender neck every day of her life until the day they buried her in the earth.

At the wake, he saw that the necklace was gone, and somehow that hurt to see that necklace taken away from her, one that he associated so closely with the woman who saved him from despair.

He didn’t see that midnight horse again until years later, when he came upon Reim and Sharon in the garden; she had her head bowed and her shoulders trembled as she cupped that necklace between both hands and immediately, he rushed to her other side and wrapped an arm over her slender shoulders in parallel to Reim’s position; “I’ll never bear a daughter to give this to,” she whispered to them both in a broken voice, “I know we’re trying but–” and a small sob escaped again and Break exchanged glances with Reim and replied words he had said to her more than once, “You are a fine woman, my Lady, and you are ours, only ours…”


	185. Chapter 185

vince/gil, kiss

***

Vincent remembered very clearly the first birthday he ever celebrated—Gilbert found where Vincent had hidden in the woods, tucked between two large tree roots underneath his blankie, hiding from their drunken mother; “I got two gifts,” Gilbert whispered, “so here’s one,” and pulled out a slightly-dented meat pasty from his pocket and playfully placed his lips on his little brother’s forehead (“And two.”)

Over a century later, Vincent huddled beneath the goose-feather duvet, watching his brother slumber beside him as the clock on the mantle softly chimed twelve; he leaned forward, feeling Gilbert’s gentle breathing against his cheek; Gil wouldn’t know this day was his real birthday, and Vincent knew better than to tell him.

A soft kiss on the smooth brow, and Vincent felt his older brother sigh, as if settling into a pleasant dream; “Happy birthday,” he whispered.


	186. Chapter 186

For Gilbert's birthday : Chocolate

***

Gilbert got used to cooking with one-hand in time; it was all a matter of taking smaller steps than he was used to, and being sure he kept his balance with certain things (sometimes his phantom limb syndrome kicked in, and more than one batch of batter fell victim to the floor as the cost).

Making Oz’s favorite chocolate gateau proved to be a challenge, and Gilbert spent double the time to prepare it than he used to.

But he made it anyhow, because he had promised he would on that anxious day months ago, and seeing the final dessert grace the tea table, Gilbert knew that the joyous expressions on his friends’ faces made the effort worth it a thousand-times over.


	187. Chapter 187

Gilbert/Elliot/Vincent a kiss on the lips

***

“I…I…I…” Elliot tried to articulate more words, but all thoughts seemed to run straight through his mind (and those thoughts were mostly reactionary ones to the wandering hands of his foster siblings as they pinned him to the bed.)

Gilbert – bashful, considerate Gilbert – bowed his head, letting his long fingers brush through Elliot’s feather-soft hair, “You…what?” he asked, his voice gaining a deeper timbre that Elliot had never noticed before tonight (must be the drink, making them descend to this–oh, Elliot bit his lip to hold back his moan, _please, stop touching him there_ –)

“–want–” Elliot managed to gasp, before Vincent stopped nuzzling his neck to reply coyly, “And so do I,” before placing a kiss on the lips, stealing the rest of Elliot’s words away.

 


	188. Chapter 188

Breakbert

***

Break had many annoying habits that reminded Gilbert of his younger brother, the invasion of personal space being one of them.

Gilbert made the mistake of making that comment once to Break’s face, and after a brief flash of disgust, he suddenly found the white-haired man even closer than before; the heat rose along his neck as he felt Break’s sweet-smelling breath brush his face.

“The difference between me and your brother,” purred the mocking voice, “is that you don’t truly mind me being this close,” he leaned in and Gilbert’s breath hitched, “do you, Gilbert-kun?”


	189. Chapter 189

Gil/Reim bondage

***

“How can you stand this?” Gil grunted, arms aching, straining against the weight as he felt the sweat drip down the muscles of his back.

Reim only chuckled, and Gilbert blushed – he couldn’t help it, not when the older man peered down at him from over his glasses in that way, the Pandora officer’s arms crossed as he watched Gilbert start to tremble.

“And that is only the one week’s worth of backlog,” Reim replied smoothly and gestured with one hand to follow him to his private office, and Gilbert nearly stumbled as he hugged the overdue paperwork in his arms, silently admitting that he would wish none of this bureaucratic bondage upon anyone.


	190. Chapter 190

Alice and Oz having a small surprise birthday party for Gilbert where they cook him seaweed spaghetti

***

“Um, are you sure this is cooked properly?” Gilbert chewed hesitatntly — yes, he could certainly taste that briney quality, and the noodles tasted a bit stiffer than he expected for a dish that carried his namesake of “seaweed head.”

Alice beamed up at Gil, and he tried to keep up that look of pleasant astonishment — it was an unexpected birthday dinner after all — as Oz patted her on the head as he added cheerfully, “The sauce is greenish too, to match the pasta!”

“So you added food coloring?” Gilbert asked and suddenly blanched as Oz replied innocently that no, he didn’t, the milk was naturally that color when he stirred it into the pot.


	191. Chapter 191

GilbertxOz

***

Gilbert had more than enough funds nowadays, especially when he (reluctantly) accepted the Nightray title and reigned as one of the most powerful Dukes in the nation; despite this, he always had his shirts and coats designed with both sleeves intact.

The last tailor left the receiving parlor, slightly puzzled but ready to indulge the noble’s request about the left sleeve: to sew the opening shut, and add a simple extra loop to the end.

Many wondered at Gilbert’s sartorial tastes until they saw him walking “arm in arm” with his blond-haired lover by his side, Oz’s wrist wrapped around that ring of cloth, Gilbert’s clothes fitted in this manner just for him.


	192. Chapter 192

Gil/Elliot, piano

***

During those first weeks at the Nightray manor, Gilbert couldn’t sleep – Vincent usually hogged the sheets, and the private anxieties about playing the spy and keeping up a fraternal front proved too much for the young boy.

The only times he found he could have dreamless dreams – not ones terrorized by Oz vanishing into a void or bloody screams for him to “Run, run, run, Gilbert!” – was during Elliot’s piano practice.

Years passed and Elliot somehow understood that when the circles beneath his foster brother’s eyes grew too heavy, all he needed to do was gesture toward the parlor room with the grande piano, help Gilbert onto the chaise-lounge by the instrument, and pull the sheets over his slumping shoulders before he began his arpeggios.


	193. Chapter 193

Gilbert/Oz, kiss

***

The rain made his eyelashes stick together, and the mud had gotten all over both their clothes but still, Oz’s laughter rang more clearer than the thunder and his eyes shone brighter than the lightning around them.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t see that puddle—” Gilbert started, flicking water off his dripping sleeves, “This will be hell to clean.”

“Doesn’t matter if we get more dirty then,” Oz replied, yanking Gilbert by the hand to roll in the muddy grass, his mouth pressed to his in an electric kiss that seemed to conduct the storm itself. 


	194. Chapter 194

Oz/Gil/Vince

***

The mirror was Vincent’s idea, and Gilbert watched with obscene fascination as his younger brother unbuttoned his shirt as he sat behind him and traced his fingers along that scar while Oz, the pale skin of his back glowing in the lamplight, worked his way undoing the front of Gilbert’s trousers.

Despite his growing arousal, Gil couldn’t help appreciate how the dim light still brought out the highlights in Oz’s hair, and then his gaze wandered to the deeper golden locks that fell across his shoulder as Vincent bit into the skin.

Gilbert reached, taking a handful of hair in each hand as he pulled them both closer (Oz gasped, Vincent moaned) as the amusing thought struck him: he _had such a thing_ for blonds.


	195. Chapter 195

Gilbert, Lips

***

Nervous habits filled Gilbert’s life, distractions of minutiae that soothed his jumpy mind and blocked the horrors lurking within: running his hands through his hair, picking at the loose threads on his gloves or sleeves, counting the number of paces it took to go from point A to point B.

The unconscious ticks were the worst, and those concerned him the most; he didn’t like to feel out of control in his dark and at times confusing world, including what his body did or did not do; so, upon a wry comment by Break over licking his chapped lips during their weekly staff meeting (“Are those dry or are you hitting on me?”) Gilbert immediately bought a jar of salve and gained a new habit of applying balm to them every so often.

The next time Break saw the youth with those shiny, aloe-covered lips, he smirked and said, “Well, pucker up lover boy, I’m all ready for you too,” and promptly got the jar thrown at his head (but it did seem to cure Gil’s tic, so he didn’t bother to complain after.)


	196. Chapter 196

Gil/Vincent/Elliot nap

***

Winters were drafty in the Nightray manor, especially in the little nest that Vincent had created for himself, a set of rooms by the servant’s quarters that no one dared enter except for Echo these days.

Gilbert or Elliot infrequently showed up there as well, and usually it was to drop off a dozing Vincent to his bedroom, when he would fall prey to the Dormouse’s typical form of “play” and end up slumped in the hallway, fast asleep (once, Gilbert and Elliot had caught Ernest with a bit of shoe tar and feathers standing over his unaware brother during one of his impromptu naps, and since then Gil made it a priority to find Vincent when he sensed the young man about to collapse from his Chain before anything untoward happened.)

There were evenings, however, that one brother or the other would agree to take Vincent to his rooms together — when they could tell from the strain on his face and sudden jerk from his limbs that these naps weren’t serene anymore — and sit on the duvet by his side to whisper, “Hey, Vince, wake up, wake up,” just to be there when the blond burst from his covers and needed to find peace in their arms in this waking world and not the other one.


	197. Chapter 197

ozbert and the word tipsy 

***

“You’re….y-you’re fuzzy,” mumbled Gilbert, nearly tipping over his wine glass if it weren’t for Oz’s slightly superior motor skills.

“Gil! I’m not fuzzy! You’ve had too much,” he reproached playfully, tousling the older man’s hair (something he never usually did, but since they both were slumped tispy over the table, he had a good opportunity.)

“Oh, silly me,” came the remark, as Gilbert scooped Oz to his side, so quick that they bumped noses, “Now I can see you _perfect._ ”


	198. Chapter 198

Oswald - violin

***

The world was attuned to his presence– that was what Oswald was always told since he was small, but instead of feeling omnipotent and ego-centric, an overwhelming sense of obligation pulled at Oswald’s heart in whatever he did; only when his violin was in hand could he believe that he was a master at something and not merely a trapped observer.

The final notes of the concerto rang out softly into the evening air and the sounds of applause filled his ears– Oswald glanced around at the other guests in the ballroom, somewhat started, even though he knew that he had just rounded off the entertainment before dinner.

A touch on his shoulder and a “Well done, well done,” from Glen as he directed everyone toward the tables, and Oswald couldn’t help the soft smile across his lips: for though like the strings of his instrument, he was tied down and stretched to his limits, he also knew that sometimes when the world was attuned to your soul, the moments of joy vibrated that much truer inside.


	199. Chapter 199

Oswald - scarlet

***

The color of her eyes haunted him long after the deed was done

For weeks after, Oswald could barely stand looking at anything clocked in red: the color of his guards’ cloaks, the roses that seemed to bloom ironically in the gardens, the glasses of wine that accompanied the meals he would refuse when the depression set in its claws.

Only when the Baskerville Door rumbled and out tumbled a small girl that mirrored her sister, bearing the cuts and bruises from her travels from the Abyss, did Oswald rush toward the sight of red: wiping the blood of this child, and he realized how life-affirming that shade could still be.


	200. Chapter 200

Oswald + plushtoy

***

“What’s this?” He asked, picking up the pieces of fluff and scraps of red fabric from the floor.

A memory itched at his brain: of Lacie as a child and games of hide-and-seek in the castle, and her squeals of joy as she found him, her plush toy rabbit hanging from one arm….

His mouth went dry and his eyes narrowed as he clenched the pieces in his hand and Oswald didn’t blame Alice (she loved this toy, she wouldn’t but…. ) and these thoughts swirled in his mind until Jack approached him later, a strange glint of something ( Excitement? Hope?) in those unreadable eyes….


	201. Chapter 201

Oswald and chocolate

***

Oswald doesn’t have a sweet tooth, not because he disliked sugar,  but because he thought flavors were too intense for him, and could only tolerate little tastes of rich foods at a time.

Sitting outside in the garden, he breaks up his teatime sweets into small bits onto his plate and nibbles, sparrow-like, watching the birds twitter in the branches as melted chocolate stains his fingers (Oswald is a meticulous eater, his gloves in his lap).

A soft, wet touch on his thumb and he glances down, expecting a squirrel or a rabbit (small creatures were often drawn to him) and instead there is Jack, a crooked grin across his lips.


	202. Chapter 202

Break/Sharon

***

Break’s greatest gift and curse is his memory: he never forgot a face, including those that haunted him in his nightmares.

But for all of the times the murdered dead haunted him, or the white-haired girl cried for him from the Abyss, or the tiny whisper in the tomb (“don’t leave me”), there comes the brighter moments….

And as he lies there letting those photographic memories flint across his sightless eyes (“so the cliche is true…”), there she appears: a young girl tugging on his sleeves, the curve of her hand as she pours tea into his cup, the swing of her hair as she runs down the Pandora hallways, playful swats of her fan, cuddling in his arms, crying… and the last, her gentle smile in the ballroom’s glow on that balcony weeks ago (a lie, he never saw her that night, but his imagination pulls strongly), and she offers him the dance…


	203. Chapter 203

Rufus/Cheryl

***

“This is a surprise.” She arches an eyebrow, tapping her folded fan in an open palm.

“Cheryl, my heart be wrought with guilt. Though I know thee well and we hath been the best of friends, my refusal to attend thy nuptials through jealousy cannot be forgiven, for in this gesture I have…” and here Rufus pauses and sighs, flourishing his own fan shut, “insulted thee.”

“I’d think your apology was sincere,” she says, somewhat crossly, “if you told me _after_ I returned from the honeymoon and hadn’t showed up here in our bedroom instead.”


	204. Chapter 204

Elliot Leo, one sided love(Leo for Elliot)

***

Levi’s laughter rang out into the hollows that was nothing (but something, right? a subconscious space? his imagination made real? his soul? no, a parallel dimension, this inner world, because he was there, with his own body…but what was this body but a manifestation of his will to exist?).

Leo had covered his ears through it all, trying to deny the existence of these strangers in his head, this crazy violence, and his…. (“I’m sorry, Leo…”) death…

At that bitter laugh, however, Leo suddenly screamed his reply: in that flash of rage he _knew_ , he wanted this world to matter, more than anything else, he wanted it all to matter even the fact that he loved Elliot in ways the boy never knew, even the fact that Elliot was gone because _death was meaningful and final_ and Leo’s despair was not to be scoffed at–that he knew more than anything else.


	205. Chapter 205

Elliot/Ada 

***

 _There must be something about her,_ Elliot thought, spotting her in the corner of the library near the history section.

A contrarian feeling welled up inside of him whenever they ran into each other in the Lutwidge hallways–beneath that sunny exterior, there _had_ some sort of…. darkness, he suspected (there had to be, because she was a Vessalius, and they were all self-centered, manipulative tightwads no matter what they displayed on the outside…), and yet he couldn’t help but feel his palms sweat and his heart stutter whenever he saw her cherub face.

He manuvered to avoid her, but his feet stumbled upon seeing one of her cats dart by his shoes; ungracefully, he fell and only caught himself by grabbing the back of a chair; turning, Ada gasped and grabbed his forearm (“Are you alright?”) and Elliot twisted away, his face beet-red as he spluttered an apology and vowing to himself not to associate with a woman like her, ever.


	206. Chapter 206

Vanessa/Hans

***

“He’s…accommodating,” she whispers to herself, twisting the handkerchief in between her gloved hands as Hans presented her meal inside her private rooms.

Vanessa is thirteen and for the first time in her life, feels control over something in her life that she also feels desire for, even if it is only the manservant ten years her senior, one who obeys her every command but never casts his eyes downward as he does so.

She wonders if this was what she should feel for a mere servant, but that doesn’t stop her from leaning forward to kiss his lips as he straightens up after lowering the dish; their lips meet–his surprisingly soft emitting a breath smelling of mint–and a surge of strength runs through Vanessa’s core (she is so young and mistakes this feeling for love).


	207. Chapter 207

Reim/Break/Sharon

***

Lady Sheryl asks again, whether Reim wants to go and he bites his lower lip and closes his eyes, torn between obligation, duty, and desire: he is obligated to stay out of duty to his lord (may it even be Lord Barma’s final wish, to see his beloved protected), but his own need wills every atom of his soul to run after the two people he cares for more than his master and his master’s mistress. 

And that final exchange between him and Xerxes–not to kill himself like a fool– rings in his ears, because Reim _knows_ that his lover would be an idiot if it saves Sharon–and Reim would do the very same as well if he were in Xerxes’s position.

He sighs and feels Lady Sheryl sigh as well, both knowing the answer before it leaves his lips.


	208. Chapter 208

Sharon x Break

***

“Xerks!” young Sharon had squealed, dashing beneath the parlor table for cover and pulling down the embroidered cloth behind her.

During those occasions, Break was half-tempted to chase the young girl out from beneath the table, half-knowing that it was best to ignore her entirely as the more effective reaction to her teasing: “You know I hate that nickname,” he had retorted in a huff from the couch.

But years later, hiding beneath an entirely different set of covers, her hair mussed up from their late night activities from earlier, Sharon whispers, “Morning Xerks,” and he knows exactly how to retaliate–“Morning, my Lady,” he growls playfully, pinning her down with a morning tickle and a kiss.


	209. Chapter 209

Gil/Elliot/Vincent

***

Reconciliation of the estrangement between his foster brothers was all Elliot had intended, even putting aside his own feelings of resentment for Gilbert’s cowardice in order to have the three of them all in the same room for once (a locked room, actually, once Elliot hid the key).

Negotiations during the past several hours, however, took a very unexpected turn.

Vincent muffled Elliot’s cries as Gil reached down to finger him from behind; he flailed, flesh rubbing against flesh, eyes lowered in lust as Gilbert prepared him for Vincent’s cock; his body would be the olive branch offered between the brothers, but at that moment, he didn’t mind this at all.


	210. Chapter 210

Oswald and Jack

***

Everyone called Oswald “spacey” for years and Oswald was secretly bothered, thinking that the comment meant that he wasn’t aware of what was important.

But he was–very much so–except Oswald also knew that he could only focus on a few things at a time (“single-minded” also never came into these conversations, though he always prided himself in this).

The way Jack’s blond hair lay upon the pillow, for example; Oswald paid sincere attention to how his fingers ran through the fine strands and the murmur of contentment Jack made as he rolled onto his side, slowly blinking his eyes open in the early morning light (who  _couldn’t_ pay attention to that face, that expression…?) 


	211. Chapter 211

Jack/Lacie

***

The night that Jack Vessalius re-entered her life, Lacie lay on the tower room floor (she liked the feeling of the harsh stone pressed against her spine, the view of the golden lights dancing above like fireflies, as if she existed on the edge of two realities).

Her earrings, reunited, dangled between her fingers, the crystal not reflecting the glowing specks that only existed in the world of the Abyss.

She was an unromantic woman and knew far better than to believe in fate or destiny (for hers was cruel); but letting the jewels roll between her fingertips, she thought–briefly–that sometimes chance worked in her favor, and she smiled as she put those earrings on. 


	212. Chapter 212

Reim/Break/Sharon

***

Droplets of rain clung to the broad leaves and petals like tears (a pretty image, if he could see it) and Break shivered from the night air after the rainstorm as he sat in the Rainsworth gardens; immediately, the weight of a wool shawl covered his shoulders and the press of warm lips against the back of his neck made him tremble in a different way.

“M'Lady?” came the question and a low chuckle answered behind him in response as a pair of masculine arms wrapped around his torso.

Another voice, another softer bundle plopping into his lap as a girlish giggle rose to his ears: “Now guess again.”


	213. Chapter 213

Reim and Sharon

***  
  
They didn’t speak of Xerxes old life before now – Reim had known about Break’s past for years, down to the exact details that he never even told Sharon, because he thought she wasn’t “ready”– and guilt pulled at him as the carriage rolled to a slow stop before the unmarked forest grove that was a part of a long-abandoned noble estate.

He took Sharon’s hand in his – she was somber, and her hands were cold despite the warm summer day – as they entered through the weather-beaten ruins to the weed-strewn family tomb.

Their names on the stone had faded with time, even the youngest one, and Sharon noticed candle stubs and years of withered flowers placed in neat bundles as faded tributes past; Reim also knew of the second grave, the giant mass one, where over a hundred anonymous skulls lay and how many years it will take to tie up those unsolved mysteries for those untold number of family histories.

Their sentences remained unfinished.  

“He never…”

“I think he wouldn’t have wanted…”

“I know but–”

Reim could tell she was trying very hard not to sob, as if seeing all of this would smear whatever she had left of him. But instead of crying, she only clenched his hand tighter and lowered the bouquet of spring flowers over on the smallest grave (she knew there was no body in that one, that poor contractor being cast into the Abyss years before). 

“He tried,” she told the unnamed girl, “And he loved you too.”

Then, straightening her back, she cleared her throat and turned to the woods beyond where the rest of the unmarked dead awaited.

This, they knew, would have been Xerxes Break’s final request.

Reim gripped the shovel he carried by his side as he directed the rest of the men he brought with them, the wagons and pulleys and special painted funerary chests for the bones.

They would have a lot of digging to do tonight.


	214. Chapter 214

Gilbert

***

Evenings in the slum apartment that had Gilbert fled to (yes, he admitted to himself, he was running away from the Nightray manor, but it was the only choice he had, he couldn’t endanger another after the Headhunter’s latest attack, yet still his insides twisted in on themselves at the thought) soon developed a listless routine.

At dusk he stumbled in, tired from training or another exhausting mission or a tedious social engagement hosted by the nobility; then came the shedding of all of his outer garments until he stood in trousers and shirtsleeves; then came the rummaging of something or another to eat (usually hard bread or cheese or the stray piece of fruit, since his stomach couldn’t handle much) and between bites of stale food, the methodical cleaning of his guns or rolling of his cigarettes (tobacco stained his fingertips, mixing with the gun oil and flavoring his smokes with the bitter edge of gunpowder); and finally, came the evening toiletries and the restless tossing that counted as sleep on a sagging mattress.

Gilbert dreamed during these hours, or feared dreaming; he sometimes cried out of longing or loneliness; he sometimes touched himself for those same reasons; and often in the midnight hours he wondered most of all if this what life truly was: suffering a waiting game, hoping for the coming light.


	215. Chapter 215

Gilbert

***

He wouldn’t stay quiet, so Gilbert used his cravat to gag him; watching that Adam’s apple bob up and down his lover’s neck as Gilbert pulled back his hair and sucked at the collarbone made the love-bite taste all the sweeter.

The man below him grunted and moaned, whether in lust or surprise Gilbert wasn’t sure– he knew this was not how their usual trysts go, for Gilbert never hungered and craved (but he did, and perhaps he could blame the Raven’s blood and many-winged power flowing through him, renewing all of his energy and sharpening his need–on moonless nights like this, Gilbert felt the urge to attack and consume).

And so he did, letting the muffled cries goad him on as he gripped and rubbed and pushed into every part he could own below him; afterwards he counted the forming bruises and loosened the gag to plant the claiming kiss, and beneath him came the soft cry of his name, said in a rasping tongue.


	216. Chapter 216

Elliot / Leo

***

One of the things that Elliot had to adjust to at Lutwidge was something he’d never expected: having a roommate–people of certain nobility could, of course, afford their own suite of rooms to mimic the privacy of their family manors, but to have his own suite meant Leo had to room separately with the boys of lesser rank, and Elliot was determined not to leave his best friend behind.

And, while Leo was his closest companion, he was also a terrible, terrible roommate.

Elliot pushed a pile of toppled over books, dirty clothes, school papers, and bits of indistinguishable rubbish away from his impeccable domain; “How many times did I have to tell you to keep to your side of the room-?” he snapped, crossly for the third time that morning after tripping over… something of Leo’s after getting up; in response, the tousled-hair boy lifted his head from somewhere amidst the stacks on his bed and mumbled, “Snot my fault… all those things were on my side last night…”


	217. Chapter 217

Bernice

***

Guests weren’t allowed at the Nightray manor for the last three months, except for one: he appears in full robes that masked his head and shoulders and enters through the front doors, so he isn’t a servant, but he doesn’t appear to be nobility either–maids note with disgust his ungloved hands (a foreigner), that strange way he rubs those fingers across their arms when they removes his cloak (a pervert), that sing-song way he demands to see the lady of the house ( a mystic).

Isla Yura, here for his weekly meditation with Lady Nightray, slips into her private rooms; whether the Lord of the House knows or cares about this, is not an issue.

Bernice sits by the altar, lighting the last of the candles in front of the portraits of her dead sons, and there seems to be a missing color in those clear blue eyes as she curtseys in greeting: “Welcome, Venerable Yura. What news have you brought from my children?”


	218. Chapter 218

Could you do something for Ernest, fic wise?

This ficlet is connected to Fred’s recollection here:<https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7785975/19/Life-and-Times-of-Lord-Frederic-Wolfgang-Nightray>  
***

The fifteen year-old youth was concealing a slim knife into his boot when he heard the footsteps behind him; Ernest knew that no weapons were allowed during the Raven’s Trial, but after hearing stories of his eldest sibling’s failure for years, he always thought it was because Frederic lacked his own line of defense; he quickly rolled down his trouser leg before the blade could be spotted.  
  
“Ernest.” A firm hand on his shoulder that the blond shook off, but Fred continued, “Claude refused to enter, and you still have a choice–”

“Claude’s a coward, Fred, and I won’t let anyone else call me that,” Ernest replied, snapping his head up to face his oldest brother and watched the storm-clouds roll over his brother’s brow (“Fred knows that he’s a failure too,” thought Ernest bitterly, echoes of his school friends’ laughter in his ears), and he left before Fred could convince him otherwise, assuring himself that the cold steel against his leg and the revolver at the small of his back would safeguard him (he would be wrong).


	219. Chapter 219

Vanessa

***

Cool autumn air whipped through Vanessa’s curls as she saddled up the thoroughbred stallion for her morning ride; the stable boys usually readied horses, but Vanessa always like to tend to Dominion herself–his presence soothed her in ways that she rarely felt inside the Nightray home nowadays.

Tightening the girth strap, she bit her lower lip and willed out the memory of breakfast: Mother, sleeping away, Father, absent as always, Elliot, sullen that neither were there to send him off for Lutwidge, and Vanessa, annoyed that that peasant Leo ate instead of served; “What kind of manservant places himself at the same table as his master?” she sneered and tossed her napkin down, “Mother and Father may not be here, but that means I am in charge of this meal and I won’t allow it!” (which only lead to an argument with her little brother and him departing immediately for school without further goodbyes with the peasant).

Vanessa mounted her ride and flicked the reins, starting him at a trot, then a canter, and as the field gates were opened into the Nightray forests, she urged Dominion onwards into a gallop, hoping the speed and the wind would be enough to wipe the tears of frustration from her cheeks.


	220. Chapter 220

Elliot

***

“En garde!” Elliot took first position, waiting for his opponent to make the first move, but before he knew it, he was swept under his feet with a side kick and he tumbled head over heels, narrowly avoiding stabbing himself with his own blade.

“You are not following protocol!” he snapped, getting up and dusting off his knees, while the other man chuckled, his long sleeve covering his mouth.

“And you think protocol matters in this round?” laughed Break, “No wonder you never bested me while you were alive!” (and that was the moment Elliot swiped, which Break deflected, with the chuckle, “You’ll have more than enough time to take to master me here, Sir Elliot!”)


	221. Chapter 221

Gil/Vincent/Elliot

***

Gilbert’s lips always felt full and soft and desirable, pressed against his, and Vincent wrapped his free hand around the hot cock throbbing below him; he moved that hand as he straddled his brother’s stomach, leaning forward to raise his arse even higher up in the air.

Vincent knew his brother was trying to say something – his name (unlikely), a reluctant protest (more likely), or even just a foul obscenity (most likely); Gilbert always liked to pretend to be ashamed of their actions together, and Vincent lived to peel away that feeling like pulling off dead skin from a callous to expose the fleshy new skin beneath (yes, exposing Gilbert, making him raw to the undeniable truth was what Vincent craved, since this was a reality he could not always indulge in).

That other truth, the dirty reality, was prepping Vincent from behind with those elegant musician fingers of his and Vincent lifted his head and hissed as Elliot slipped in a third finger inside him (“Take me,” he commanded, as if a Nightray could truly be ordered to do anything, “Take me, damn it, take me now,” before Gilbert heeded that command and claimed Vincent’s mouth for his own.)


	222. Chapter 222

Vanessa's desire to contract with Raven. Your take on it, either AU or canon.

***

Vanessa suspected that all underground basements required the sound of dripping water as some standard-issue of manor construction, or perhaps that sound was coming from beyond the Gate she was staring at, but either way, that slow drip….drip…drip… echoed in the cavernous space in an unnatural way that lifted the hairs from the back of her neck.

And the drip…drip…drip… followed her as she stepped through and it followed her as the chains lashed out and tightened around her limbs, cutting off all circulation and even stopping the breath in her lungs and the drip…drip…drip… could even be her sweat or her blood or her urine down the pant of one stockinged leg and she thought in a flash, “Why didn’t I leave a note-? I would be gone and they’d never find me again…” and drip…drip…drip…

“Why?” came the word she whispered and that eye, large and yellow and all-encompassing, reached down into the depths of her and suddenly she knew why Fred never spoke of this and why Ernest cried and why Claude escaped half-dead and she clenched her eyes shut and wept as the Raven answered, “Wake up,” and she did, all sweat and damp and the bedsheets ruined and she blamed herself for being too pathetic never to follow her dreams (but fearful too, that the nightmare would have come true if she did…)


	223. Chapter 223

Ada, Prompt: brother/Oz

***

For a long time Oz didn’t say anything more; Ada, despite being bruised and exhausted beyond belief, was riding on a shot of adrenaline that had risen up again once she had awoken from her stupor when she saw that monstrous cleaver-wielding Chain attack.

“Father must’ve really loved you…” The words echoed in her ears and she could hear the soft sniffles coming from her older brother as they walked through the ruined streets of former Sablier; long after that layer of fog in her head melted away, the words still echoed and she didn’t want to tell him the only thought in her mind: “I hated him, Oz, I said I hated him because he never understood me or you or Uncle Oscar, he always only full of such bitterness, but…but…”

She tightened her grip on Oz’s hand and swallowed the rising lump in her throat as she gently touched the splatters of blood on her dress that she knew was not hers nor Oz’s.


	224. Chapter 224

Vincent & Ada

***

She was pretty, but Vincent had been with pretty in his past (and he had been with ravishing and handsome and ugly as well), so it wasn’t her prettiness that caught his attention at that boring, pretentious ball.

He used to think it was her eyes, being the very same eyes that Jack had, but once he had spied upon Oz Vessalius, he realized how very distinctive Ada’s eyes were–a different shade of green: deeper, flecked with hazel, with lashes much shorter and darker than Jack’s (Oz’s).

Reflecting upon that moment once more (Vincent had started this habit of self-reflection in his older years, as painful as remembering could be, in order to puzzle out the layers of emotions that he had obscured from everyone including himself), he realized it was not her eyes or her face or her body or her clothes that Vincent noticed, but something very untypical of the silly women and men he had wooed: a sense of complete isolation surrounded Ada Vessalius, alone on that couch, and that loneliness pulled at Vincent deep inside, and then he saw her eyes….


	225. Chapter 225

Ada & Sharon  
  


***

“Could you hand me Oscar’s bottle?” Ada asked asked Sharon as the older woman entered the nursery, performing the miraculous feat of holding one screaming infant in the crook of one arm while carefully lowering her other arm toward the bassinet to gently roll baby Oscar onto the fluffy pillows.

Sharon scooped the bottle from the sideboard and popped it into the baby’s mouth, instantly plugged up half the room’s noise; soon, silence reigned as Xerks got his bottle, and the two women settled down by the matching cradles, teacups in hand.

“They’ve grown since,” she commented, and Ada smiled, ducking her head in a girlish way; a pang hit Sharon for a moment (was it envy?), and carefully, she brushed the fine downy hair off of Xerks head–a blond fine enough to resemble white–before adding, “and so have you, Ada.”


	226. Chapter 226

Ada, Prompt: Oz + pasteries

***

Ada tugged at Oz’s sleeve, a frown upon her pouty six-year-old face: “You’re late,” she admonished in a stern voice and plunked Oz into his seat at the tiny table and before the tiny silver tea set and the three-tier display of pastries.

“Pardon me, Miss Ada,” Oz said gravely, but Ada didn’t decide to snub him any tea, though she did serve him last after Mister Froggy, Miss Beatrice the Bear, and the Troika brothers (triplets dapple ponies, each with different colored ribbons tied in their yarn manes).

The two of them continued their dainty tea, nibbling on cake and cookies, as her best company sat around in their satin and velvet glory, offering little conversation but maintaining dignified expressions in their button and glass eyes: “Your hostess skills are impeccable, Miss Ada,” praised Oz by the end, “You make me feel perfectly at home here.


	227. Chapter 227

Ada, hair ribbons

***

Ada always wore the same hair ribbons since she was a little girl, and it wasn’t a surprise that she wanted to keep them in her hair on her wedding day; like the adage required, they were something old, and she always followed old wives’ tales when it came to rituals, especially concerning love and marriage.

“Something new,” she said, threading the last blossom in her hair; checking herself in the mirror, she tilted the veil on her head, Lady Sheryl’s lace and brocade lightly yellowed with age (“I only needed it once anyhow,” the old Duchess chortled, much to the fuming of Lord Rufus behind her).

“And…” Vincent had given her this the day he proposed, and she smiled as she stroked the azure feather, tied to the inside of her wrist, “Something blue.”


	228. Chapter 228

Ada, roses

***

“Such a cloying scent,” Sharon covered a kerchief with her hand, eyes watering, “May I be excused?” and before Ada could say another word in apology, the Lady left the room.

Ada flushed red and immediately ordered a servant to take away the vase brimming with black roses from the front foyer of her townhouse that she shared with her beloved – she knew that Vincent had done some terrible things in the past and her stomach sank as Lady Sharon returned twenty minutes later, her eyes still rimmed red with tears.

Sharon remained Ada’s good friend, though she had remained distant toward Vincent – that evening however, during her walk alone with Vincent, she turned to her fiancé and asked, point blank: “Tell me what you did to her” – afterwards, she forgave him as long as Sharon would (and that was a trial for them all), but Ada never allowed another rose, black or not, to enter her household again.


	229. Chapter 229

Ada & Alice

***

Ada reclined beneath the heavy boughs of the oak tree, letting Dinah jump and paw at the fallen hair ribbon that she dangled before the kitten.

“Whatcha doin?” Ada jumped to see Alice peer her dark head from around the curve of the tree trunk; “Playing,” Ada answered cheerfully, “Dinah’s full of extra kitten energy today.”

And apparently, so was Alice, for she immediately fell from the crouching position onto her back, snatching the ribbon from Ada’s hands–“I won!” she proclaimed, which only resulted in Dinah and all of his feline friends to gang up on Alice, mewing and scrambling to retrieve the ribbon and deliver it to the rightful owner; Ada giggled and began untying her other hair ribbon, preparing to save her friend from unbearable cuteness.


	230. Chapter 230

Elliot, ice cream

***

  
As Elliot grew older, training became more of a priority and maintaining a swordman’s health regime key—he forswore all sugar at one point, despite his sweet tooth, and despite the taunting way Leo and Vincent both indulged at the dinner table every night (a conspiracy, it was, those devils).

The clink of metal on glass as Leo scrapped the remains of his chocolate ice cream from the crystal bowl grated on his nerves. He could have excused himself earlier, but it wasn’t proper to leave the table before Leo did, and besides, who else was supposed to partner with him for his nightly fencing exercises?

“Lovely, lovely.” Leo smiled, pushing up his spectacles along the bridge of his nose and tipped his spoon toward Vincent, who sat across from them, slowly chewing on the cherry that had graced the top of his four-scoop sundae.

Vincent pulled the cherry stem from his mouth. “Shall we ask for seconds?”

“I can make room for that.”

“No, you cannot,” Elliot snapped. “You can’t fight on a full stomach.”

Leo sucked the lack of the caramel sauce from his teaspoon. “Who said I was full yet?”

“Argh!” was the only reply Leo got, as Elliot stormed off.

Later, Leo found his friend in the kitchen, hunched over a plate of frosted cookies for the next day’s tea. “Don’t even,” he said, as Leo offered him his foil. 


	231. Chapter 231

Elliot/ Leo

***

Elliot likes things done in a straightforward manner. “No lies,” he tells himself. Not like Father, who says one thing and does another for the sake of politics. Or other lies that Mother drapes herself in like a prayer shawl, covering herself up in that disgusting cultist’s fantasies.  Or, those unintentional lies that dwell like crumpled flower petals in his chest:

_“I’ll see you for your next name day,” Fred told him before he left in that carriage and transitioned from that tiny boxed space into an even tinier one, now sunk beneath the earth._

_“We’ll find that murderer.” A hug from Ernest as Claude grabbed their travelling cloaks. “Stay here where it’s safe.”_

_“It’s better for Pandora if I live closer to them. Work, y’know,” explained that yellow-bellied coward, and Elliot told Gilbert he was exactly that and how dare Gil run away when the family needed him the most (when Elliot needs him the most…)_

Elliot hates people when they drop out of his life, one-by-one. He tells himself that they’ve lied to him by not sticking around.

And who remains? The brave do, Elliot believes. The true and noble ones do.

So when he spots Leo distracted and doesn’t explain why he is too upset to read his book, or when Leo throws tantrums and flips chairs over rather than come down with him for dinner, or now, tonight, exchanging odd looks with Yura and having that petty, disgusting argument with him where all Elliot could hear was falsehood after falsehood from Leo’s mouth about why he was so upset (and the worse falsehood hidden in that lengthy silence after Leo has left.)  

“Stop lying to me,” he wants to yell, but doesn’t, because Leo has been the one who remained for Elliot and he can’t bear to think that tonight will be the night that reveals Leo had deceived him all along.   


	232. Chapter 232

Elliot, hourglass

***

The black window is distinguished by the red hour-glass on her belly. Her venom is poisonous. Black widows prefer to live in closed, damp spaces, in firewood piles, between staircase floorboards. Pointless fact drifts through Elliot’s mind as he watched one spin her web in the corner of the room.

 _Too much stone down here. Too dark. You’ll catch nothing and you’ll die_ , comes the thought. _Poor spider._

His right hand twitches, clutching the Nightray blade to his side. _How strange_ , he thinks, as the edges of black cross his vision, _that I pity her_. The crumpled form nearby also had her own plume of blood, He watches red meet red across the stone floor, but does not think much else about his mother (another pain too much to bear).

He wonders if the spider will climb down from her web.

He wonders if her bite will kill the other agonies that radiate throughout his dying body.

He wonders if all the crimson on the floor matches the red of her belly.

He wonders–  


	233. Chapter 233

Elliot, proposal

***

“Um, whatcha say?” he asked, blinking, unsure by exactly what she meant. Not that she wasn’t pretty or anything, standing in front of him in that dress of blue and yellow taffeta, and her hair tied up in ribbons that curled at the ends.

“My proposal,” declared the toddler in front of him. She beamed and flourished a handful of flowers that Elliot was sure had been plucked from the Nightray flowerbeds. He wasn’t sure if the gardener would like this. “For you.”

Was he even allowed to think of girls as pretty? Well, Ernest thought plenty of girls were pretty, and he always seems to call out to those who were whenever Elliot and he were in town together (Not that those girl looked like they enjoyed his remarks, come to think about it. Vanessa had slapped Ernest outright when she caught him shouting how gorgeous a shopkeeper was when they passed her by in their carriage.)

“Please, young Lord Elliot,” squeaked the girl, proffering her bouquet of flowers. “It’s a present.”

“Oh, all right,” Elliot lowered his wooden sword. He was familiar with the concept of tokens. Highborn women gave away tokens to their true loves in all of the storybooks he read. Holding the bunch of flowers, a heat grew on his cheeks. Was this love?

“My Lady Ramona,” he gasped, dropping the bundle. “I-I-I, um, dedicate my sword to you!” Going down on one knee, he bowed his head and pressed the flowers to his chest. “I shall cherish this always,” he said, feeling quite satisfied that he was doing what he was supposed to do in this situation.

“Ramona, darling!” The Countess emerged from the veranda and waved a handkerchief over to the two of them standing in the garden. “There you are! Now come and finish your tea with Maman.”

“Yes Maman!” The girl grabbed his hand. “Look, Maman! I got me a husband!”

“Husband!” Elliot jerked his hand away. “I’m your knight. We can’t get married!” That never happened in the stories. He wanted to explain further that knight rode off and had adventures and they usually carried their Lady’s token pinned to their breast, but that had nothing to do with getting married.

The girl’s expression crumbled. “B-but I proposed!” The Countess sighed and scooped up the three year old into her arms.

“Darling, Nightray’s aren’t the marrying type,” she soothed. “Now come and have a cookie inside, hmm?”

“Course not!” Elliot huffed privately, picking up his blade. “Why would I ever want to get married?” What a stupid notion! Silly little girl.

Nevertheless, he stuffed the flowers inside his vest and patted it gently. Having a token felt quite nice.


	234. Chapter 234

Vincent/Noise loss

***

In retrospect, Vincent couldn’t process a lot of his feelings and actions from that day until weeks later: after the rush of anguish, fear, anxiety, despair, and finally, the outpouring of all of these bottled shadows as he clung to Ada, only numbness pervaded.

One evening, as Ada gathered the last of his items from the Nightray manor during his move to her townhouse, she asked, offhanded, “Is this yours too?” and offered the only stuffed creature untouched by his scissors.

Vincent rubbed the corduroy fabric and stared at the button eyes blankly for a moment, before a feeling of loss rose up and strangled his throat; he clutched the doll to his chest and whispered, “Noise,” the name a sharp dagger in his chest.


	235. Chapter 235

Vincent, genius

***

“How did you, I mean, that was fifty meters, it can’t, you…” Gilbert stuck a hand through his black locks, golden eyes wide in astonishment; young Vincent shifted his weight to the side and blew smoke off from the end of his pistol exaggeratedly.

“You’re a genius,” Gilbert muttered and Vince’s heart swelled knowing how his marksmanship impressed his older brother.

“Let me show you,” he replied smugly and stood behind his older brother, resting his chin against his shoulder as he guided Gilbert’s arms in his own toward the target (and felt a different sort of flutter in his chest).


	236. Chapter 236

Vincent, Father

***

“Your father’s the devil,” his mother told him, one of the few things Vincent recalled his mother telling him before she sold Vincent and Gilbert off as freaks.

The ringmaster liked the sound of the line and Vincent recited it every evening for the next two years; the more he snarled and spat and screamed and pulled at his clothes while he did it, the less he got punished for misdemeanors later on and sometimes, he even got an extra ration of bread.

Still, years later when Ernest sneered at him and spat, “Devil’s bastard,” the boy’s eyes flashed and he gritted his teeth, silently swearing that one day, that spiteful noble would pay for those words.


	237. Chapter 237

Vincent, piano

***

Vincent loved music, but didn’t enjoy most circumstances involving music: irritating soirees or private salons filled with vapid nobles boasting about their spoiled ways or attempting to fawn their way into his good graces.

The only exception was moments like this, resting on the chaise lounge as Elliot finished his newest piece and rested his fingers on the smooth piano keys.

The song Elliot played sounded strangely familiar, and when Elliot told him its title – Lacie – an odd feeling overcame Vincent, though he couldn’t put his finger on why.


	238. Chapter 238

Vincent/Dormouse-induced-dreams

***

When he moves, there is a chill that runs through him, a hovering whisper, the ghost of a touch and an exhale: “Mine.”

The grunts and soft begging, and Vincent’s hands fist the sheets beneath him as he shivers and the sweat on his back feels icy to the touch while he rocks, eyes closed, lost.

In the morning the light clears the fog in his head to expose the slick, dried mess smeared between his thighs, and Vincent wakes, wondering what had gotten into him the night before (and his Chain titters and twitches an ear – it knows).


	239. Chapter 239

Gilbert, Winter

***

Gilbert’s earliest memories of winter are unpleasant: sleeping in dirtied streets filled with grimy snow and refuse, huddled against Vincent for warmth; the wet chill seeping into his frail lungs; the flying sleet pricking against his uncovered face like a thousand needles.

He had forgotten those memories for a very long time, of course, but the visceral reminders which never left his body urge him to stay inside under overcast skies and makes him snap at Break whenever the two of them are on patrol during the frigid nights for Pandora.

And yet an ember glows inside his chest as Gilbert sips his coffee in his ramshackle apartment as he stares out the frost-covered window: laughter and little Ada’s bouncing braids as Oz pulled her on the sled up a snowy hillside and the shoot of warmth through Gilbert as Oz’s mittened hand grabbed ahold of his (“C’mon, Gil, let’s go!”).


	240. Chapter 240

Ozbert

***

Photography proves to be a skill Oz has a lot of talent for, and many an afternoon is spent with him beneath the black cloth of Uncle Oscar’s trustworthy camera, gathering portraits of friends and strangers at his studio or outside in the manor gardens or by the nearby river, catching snatches of birds, plants and the changing hues of the sky.

“Oz,” Gilbert notices while flipping through his latest set, “why don’t you take any of yourself?”  
  
“Who else can use the camera when I’m sitting in front of it?” The young man shrugs, though both of them know the truth (he resembles Jack more and more as he ages normally, even with his hair short), and Oz is about to add some excuse about not being photogenic, until Gilbert wraps an arm about his waist and says, “Teach me then,” and Oz feels a rush to his head at the thought of being held captive under Gil’s discerning eye.


	241. Chapter 241

Gil/Vince portrait

***

Portrait-sitting isn’t the most ideal way of spending his latest birthday, but Gilbert hides his boredom before the hired painter as he and Vincent sit side-by-side on the chaise-lounge, while the younger sibling positions one arm along the curved headrest and tucks the other behind Gilbert’s back.

Perhaps Gil is secretly grateful that the student artist is too intimidated before nobility to comment upon their intimate pose, with Gilbert’s arm curved alongside the rise of the couch behind Vincent’s head, lazily twisting Vincent’s locks between long, elegant fingers.

“How much longer?” Vincent mutters, and Gilbert at first thinks that Vincent is as mildly annoyed as he is until he looks down and realizes acutely why Vincent had placed a cushion in his lap at the beginning of the hour: “Sir,” Gilbert suddenly says in a strained tone, “my brother’s getting tired–would you mind continuing this another day?”


	242. Chapter 242

Oz

***

  
For a long time, Oz the Velveteen Rabbit didn’t understand the concepts of love and affection. When he was held in bed at night by the pretty red-eyed girl— that sensation felt desirable and very nice, and it hurt during the day when he watched her from his spot on the shelf, waiting for the sun to set so she can touch him again.  
  
He had no way to speak or communicate these feelings to anyone else except for the Core (but then again, he didn’t really know what the Core was either, only a large brightness that filled him with awe and awareness.)

For many periods of time it was only him and the Core who existed beside each other in the lowest level of the Abyss, letting these strange sensations flow through them and between them, until Oz could finally say that, yes, those had been feelings, and yes, the Core had been a friend in misery and yearning, if nothing else. 


	243. Chapter 243

Leo

***

“So, you’ve been watching the whole time, haven’t you?” Leo couldn’t help but ask that white-haired jerkface who had been squatting in his soul ever since his birth (Leo had no kind feelings toward Levi Baskerville — or any of the other Glens, really — but for some reason, this Glen in particular irritated him the most, with his masked smiles and casual nihilism).  
  
“Free entertainment is never to be snuffed at,” came the reply from the man reclining on the ground before him, one elbow propped up on the Flow of his consciousness, “Truth be told, I have to admit your life proved to be more fascinating than mine.”  
  
“How so?” Leo couldn’t help but ask and then dreaded the immediate answer: “A young man, tortured between two blonds: one noble but dead, the other terrible but pitiful—which would darling Leo choose?” (And a whimsical chuckle at the end as Levi added, “I’ve always had a weakness for the good-hearted ones myself.”)


	244. Chapter 244

Lily

***

Lily didn’t know much about family—what she did know actually, was what you did as family, and what you did not do, and because she was plagued by the devil, she could only do certain things according to her family.  
  
First thing: she could not talk or move in a way that distracted others; second: anything terrible that happened in the village was because of the demons that live under her skin; third, she had to stay very, very still and not cry and not fight as the elders held her down and scarred her face (to tame the demons, you understand, little girl?)  
  
Only when she arrived at the Baskerville House and saw the dark tattoos on the faces of Uncle Fang and Uncle Doug did she truly understand what family meant— it meant people who would do all the things she did and suffered all the things she had (and did it willingly, not because they were told to.)


	245. Chapter 245

Lacie Baskerville, natural

***

One of the lingering tragedies of life, young Lacie realizes is the notion that its cessation is both natural and accepted without explanation. To her, there had to be some underlying reason why something happened, even if it be the most minor or petty thing, including death. 

One afternoon, for example, she had been nursing a baby chick that had fallen out from a nest in the garden, but no matter how hard she tried and how much she feed it, the tiny baby bird grew weaker by the day, until one morning, she peeked into the nest of straw and rags she made for it only to find a still lifeless body.  
  
Crying to Levi afterwards, the older man simply took the bird into his hands and said, “So it goes.”

“That’s all?” she had fumed, stomping her tiny feet. “How can you say that, Glen?”

“What more can be said?” he asked. “It lived, it tried, and it passed on.” Catching the expression on her face, he added, “You can cry, Lacie, and be sad, but tell me, do you think this tiny thing is sad now that it’s dead?”

A significant moment passed between them, until slowly, she shakes her head.

“Still, it is quite kind of you to pity the creature. Your pity, however, says more about you than it does for the bird. As do all reactions after something dies.” He gently pats her and the head and a gentle smile crossed his face. “Find a place under the shade and we can bury it together.”


	246. Chapter 246

Gilbert, Apathy

***  
  
If there was one thing Gilbert despised about people, it was the way they denied ability to act not out of selfishness or evilness but pure lack of will. That apathy he found in no other more than Xerxes Break, who always strolled into Pandora hours late, never bothered to do any of his paperwork, and on patrol, made Gilbert do all of the necessary tasks as part of his “learning experience” as a junior officer.  
  
“You clown,” he scowled one late night coming back to headquarters; they had spent most of the evening tracking an illegal contractor, and even now, Gilbert wanted to rip off his gloves and run his hands under boiling water to get that feeling of death seared off his fingertips. “You didn’t you take the shot-? He was right there!” The culprit would’ve gotten away, if Gilbert hadn’t chased him down three blocks and subdued him by force. “Don’t you even care-?!”  
  
“Oh I do,” came the drawl behind him as Break leaned against the darkened threshold. Gilbert’s fists clenched—he wanted to throttle the man. Gilbert flashed his golden eyes at him but was shocked to see the man stone-faced and his voice flat. “Did I give the order to shoot, Gilbert?”

“Well, that’s what you always-”  
  
“Did I, you brat?”

He sighed and put his hand in his hands. He could feel the imprint of gunpowder and death upon his skin. “Damn you-“

“I care enough when to give orders and when not to.” A scoff as the man turns his back to the youth. “Don’t blame me for your choices.”  
  
Gilbert wanted to scream and jump that damned manipulative bastard right then and there, but his breath caught in his throat as soon as the thought passed as he realized how deeply Break actually cared about the job… and about what Gil had done (afterward, he never blamed Break for anything else on patrol, even if the criminal got away.)


	247. Chapter 247

Dormouse

***

Chains choose their own contractors, it is said, and so Vincent didn’t really know why after having a monstrous skeleton demon partner with him, his next Chain would be something so… docile and cheerful and whimsical.

In truth, the Dormouse was all of those things (and much darker things as well), but when it nudged itself by Vincent’s side on lonely evenings with a gentle

_let’s_

_play_

Vincent couldn’t help but feel that Chain’s soothing nature seep through his fingers as he brushed through the mist along its flank.

Vincent reluctantly played the Dormouse’s uncomplicated games of rolling marbles and tossing jax and watching twigs drift on the fish pond in the garden ( _“dor-sticks”_ it declared); after awhile a giggling warmth filled his chest and he would even offer his otherworldly playmate a small smile in return for its joy.


	248. Chapter 248

Oz

***

Oz didn’t know what to make of baby Ada, except as the little thief who took his old nursery by his parents’ suite (“You get big boy rooms all to yourself now,” Mother told him, but Oz didn’t want to be so far away on the other side of the manor).

One night, Oz entered the baby’s room to see Lady Vessalius tiredly rocking crying Ada in her arms, trying to distract her with a stuffed bear, and muttering, “Poor thing, what do you want?”   
  
Oz placed his tiny hand on the bundle; Ada stopped, instantly comforted, and Oz, smiling, said a very odd thing that Lady Vessalius later attributed to a child’s whimsy: “Little Ada wants me, ‘cause I’m more real than a silly old bear.”


	249. Chapter 249

Jack

***

The frosty air bit at his fingers and toes, but Jack offered Lacie the scarf anyway (though technically it wasn’t even his to offer, since she had been the one who stole these winter clothes for him).

She wrapped it triple around her neck and let the ends bob behind her playfully; Lacie called him a sweet boy for thinking she was cold and her laugh echoed like bells in the silvery night.

Later, the scarf got dropped by the roadside; Jack picked it up, still clutching her earring in his other fist, and wrapped it around his shoulders three times to catch the ghost of her warmth encircling him.


End file.
